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Hearing Consultation

You Need a Hearing Consultation because

Better Hearing = Better health.  

Untreated hearing loss is highly correlated with a host of other worrisome health issues: cognitive decline, depression, diabetes, and heart disease to name a few.  Hearing loss is a hidden disability.  You can’t see it but you will notice it in those you love because they disengage in conversations, withdraw from gatherings, and miss the punch lines of jokes.  

You don’t have to live with hearing loss: It’s often easily treatable, and effective treatment can help slow progression of further hearing loss.  If you’re concerned you or a loved one may have hearing loss, don’t wait.  Make your appointment for a hearing consultation and discover what options are available for treatment!

Hearing loss facts:

  • It’s the third most experienced physical condition for adults worldwide. Right now, there are an estimated 48 million Americans suffering from a decrease in hearing. That’s 1 out of 5 people, many of whom go untreated. By age 65, 1 out of 3 people will experience hearing loss.
  • Hearing loss can affect people of all ages.
  • Hearing loss risks increase with age and individuals over age 60 are recommended to seek annual hearing check-ups in order to catch and diagnose hearing problems early.
  • Those with untreated hearing loss are at 3 times greater risk of falling!
  • Your friends and family typically notice your hearing loss long before you realize it’s a problem.  

What is a Hearing Consultation?

This visit begins with a thorough case history so we may fully understand the hearing difficulties you face.  We inspect your ears using video otoscopy, a camera that goes in your ear, so you can see the inside of your ear canal and your eardrum.  We then complete a thorough assessment of your hearing inside a sound booth so we can accurately measure the softest sounds you can hear.  We also assess your ability to process speech in quiet and in noise.  The appointment concludes with a detailed report of the findings and recommendations for treatment in language you can understand.  We then send a courtesy report to your physician because we believe it’s important to include your physician in any health assessment.  Everyone needs to establish a baseline for their hearing at least once in their adult life.  Don’t wait, make your appointment for your hearing consultation now!

Hearing Consultation Process

We will start with an interview to learn about your hearing health history.  This includes questions about balance, tinnitus, and past noise exposure. Most importantly, we will ask about your communication goals.  We know we can help you hear better, but we want to know how we can help improve your quality of life!

We look in your ears with a camera.  This allows you to see the inside of your ear canals and your eardrums in full color.  We can describe what we see but it’s so much better and easier to understand if you can also see it for yourself!

We will obtain accurate hearing thresholds inside our sound booth.  We also test how you hear speech in quiet and more importantly, how you hear speech in noise. 

We will thoroughly explain your test results to you in a way that is easy to understand and we fully answer any questions you have about those test results.

We will go over the pros and cons of all treatment options available for your hearing loss.  This includes referring you on to an ENT physician if necessary or completing a custom demo of current hearing aid technology.

We custom fit devices to your ears using Real Ear Measures (REMs) fitting verification.  This is a BIG WAY WE STAND OUT from other provider options.  Many offices offer demo devices, but they do not offer demo of devices that are custom fit with REMs and devices you can try at home for 2 WEEKS before making a final purchase decision.  We know that improved hearing in our office is nice, but improved hearing at home is essential.  The only way to be certain we meet that goal is to wear the hearing aids at home, work, and all the other places you need to hear.

Follow Up

Achieving the best results with hearing aids requires time for you to adjust to them and may also require further fine tuning.  We tell our patients, we can fix almost any complaint but we can’t fix what we don’t know is a problem, so we make sure our patients return for at least one follow-up appointment so we can hear from them they are happy.  If not, we want the opportunity to make adjustments so we can achieve the better hearing you deserve. 

Once identified with hearing loss, it is important to retest annually to be sure the hearing loss is stable.  This is particularly important if the patient has chosen not to treat their hearing loss because we know untreated hearing loss typically progresses faster than treated hearing loss.  Routine monitoring is equally important for those who choose treatment as we need to be sure the hearing aids are continuing to work up to their prescribed performance. 

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