What 25 years of fitting hearing aids in Cobb County has taught me

I have been fitting hearing aids for more than twenty five years, most of it here in Marietta. A few things I have come to believe.

The technology changed completely. The waiting did not.

The devices I fitted early on were analogue. You adjusted them with a screwdriver. Today I am programming a computer that streams phone calls and adjusts itself as you walk from a quiet room into a loud one.

What has not shifted is how long people wait. It is still years between the first time somebody notices and the first time they do anything, and it is still the spouse or the daughter who eventually makes the appointment. I have never once had a patient tell me they wished they had waited longer.

People buy on the wrong thing

Two questions dominate: how much, and how small. Both are understandable and neither predicts satisfaction.

The question that predicts satisfaction is where you actually struggle. Someone who is retired, lives quietly and watches a lot of television does not need the top tier device, and I will tell them so. Someone still working, in meetings, singing in a choir, eating out twice a week, is going to notice the difference every day. Same price list, opposite advice.

On size: the smallest device is not automatically the best one. Very small aids have smaller batteries, less room for the microphones that help in noise, and fiddlier handling for arthritic fingers. Sometimes small is right. It should be a decision, not a reflex.

The fitting matters more than the device

This is the part patients cannot evaluate and it is the part that matters most. A mid tier hearing aid, measured properly in your ear and adjusted over two or three visits, will outperform a premium device set to the manufacturer’s default. Every time.

Which is why I do not think you should choose a provider on price alone. You are not really buying a device. You are buying however many appointments it takes.

The first week is not the verdict

Everything sounds too bright at the start. Your own voice sounds wrong. That is the brain re-learning, and it settles. The people who struggle are almost always the ones who decided in week one that it was not working and stopped wearing them.

Wear them. Come back. Tell me specifically what did not work and where. I can fix a lot of things with a laptop and ten minutes, but only if I know what they are.

Bring someone with you

Whoever is most affected by your hearing, bring them. They notice things you do not, they remember what I said differently to how you remember it, and the goals we set are more realistic when two people set them. Families who come in together do better. I do not have a controlled trial for that, but twenty five years is a reasonable sample.

What I refer on, and why that matters

I am a Hearing Instrument Specialist. I test hearing and I fit hearing aids. I do not diagnose medical conditions of the ear, and I think being clear about that is part of doing this job properly. Sudden loss, one sided loss, pain, drainage, dizziness, ringing in one ear only: those go to a physician, and they go quickly. I would rather send you somewhere else than sell you something that was never going to help.

Why we are still one office

We have stayed a single location on purpose. It means the person who tests your hearing is the person who fits your aids and the person who adjusts them three years later. In a business where the follow up is most of the value, that continuity is the whole point.

If you have been putting this off, a consultation takes about 45 minutes. Book one, or come and ask me questions without committing to anything. I have heard them all and I would rather you asked.