{"id":10431,"date":"2020-02-05T09:19:56","date_gmt":"2020-02-05T17:19:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mayosis.com\/zipold\/?p=10431"},"modified":"2022-09-05T15:20:58","modified_gmt":"2022-09-05T15:20:58","slug":"find-hearing-provider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/find-hearing-provider\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Find a Good Hearing Provider"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Ask any experienced hearing aid wearer and they\u2019re likely to agree-<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finding a good hearing provider is the single most important part of the hearing aid buying process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Find a good audiologist or hearing aid dispenser, and your investment in hearing aids has the potential to be one of the most life changing purchases you\u2019ve ever made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the other hand, choose the wrong hearing provider, and your hearing aids could end up being a colossal waste of money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The importance of choosing a good hearing provider can\u2019t be overstated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, as a first time hearing aid wearer, it\u2019s hard to know what to look for in a hearing provider, and if you do a web search for \u201chow to find a good hearing provider,\u201d you\u2019re likely to find the same tired advice recycled on every blog post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In this post, we want to go a bit deeper, and provide some insider tips to help you get this decision right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-zip-gutenberg-zip-youtube zip-post-inside-video\"><div class=\"plyr__video-embed zip-youtube-player\" id=\"playerghzip\"><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wKdmUYbwUr4\"><\/iframe><\/div><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Top 5 Tips for Finding a Good Hearing Provider<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>As with choosing any service provider, do your basic due diligence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Visit their website. Read their reviews. Check their credentials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once you have a small list of providers to consider, think about &#8220;layering&#8221; on the below criteria to further narrow your list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Contact the provider afterhours to gauge their responsiveness<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Response times, especially at the outset of a relationship when you are considering spending money, are a great indicator of how responsive and organized a hearing provider is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Consider sending the business a message through their website, or leaving a voicemail, afterhours. If it takes the business a few business days to respond, this is a decent indicator that they may not be the most efficiently-run organization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why is this important?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you buy hearing aids from a provider, you are beginning a multi-year relationship with them. Anytime you need a service appointment in the future, or need a repair done, or for anything else that may come up, you want a provider that is responsive and can get you an appointment quickly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, working with an efficient and responsive hearing provider means more days with better hearing- as opposed to days waiting for appointments or repairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We know- this tip seems odd. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The reason we have to include it, is because (without exception), it&#8217;s been our experience that responsive and well-organized hearing providers are rated much higher in terms of overall satisfaction by our customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. If you know the model you want, ask the hearing aid manufacturer for a recommendation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>In every locale, there is usually at least one hearing provider who is considered the &#8220;strongest&#8221; provider in the area for any particular brand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The manufacturers know who these providers are, and if you contact them and ask for a referral, they\u2019ll give you the names of these providers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If a provider comes recommended from the manufacturer, you can be pretty confident that that provider is well-versed on that particular brand, probably fits it almost exclusively, and with a high success rate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Choose a provider that works with multiple brands<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019re not sure of the hearing aid(s) you want, it\u2019s best to work with a hearing provider who is comfortable fitting multiple brands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>No hearing aid manufacturer builds the best hearing aid for <em>everyone&#8217;s<\/em> needs. Certain manufacturers are a better choice for some people than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your hearing provider is well-versed on more than one brand, it\u2019s a good indication that they\u2019re up to speed on the latest technology available, which ultimately means you\u2019re more likely to get the perfect hearing aid(s) for your specific needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Many hearing providers that work with multiple brands will advertise this information on their website. If they don\u2019t, it doesn\u2019t hurt to contact the provider (consider doing along with tip #1), and inquire as to the brands the provider works with routinely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Find a provider that follows best practices<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>There are many \u201cbest practices\u201d in hearing healthcare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, your hearing test should be conducted in a soundproof booth or room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s also important that the provider uses some kind of fitting verification, like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/real-ear-measurement\/\">real ear measurement<\/a>, to ensure the hearing aids are appropriately amplifying sound for your specific needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You can find lists of these best practices online, but you should know that opinions vary (even among doctorate-level audiologists), as to the importance of <em>some<\/em> of these best practices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">5. Get a referral from a third party service<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Third party referral services (like <a href=\"\/\">ZipHearing<\/a>), which maintain a database of reviews on providers nationwide, can refer you to a reputable hearing provider in your community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>An added benefit of using a referral service is they\u2019ll also help you secure competitive pricing on hearing aids.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Keep in mind<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>There are always outliers- exceptions to the rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As helpful as we&#8217;ve found some of the above tips to be, you can&#8217;t discount the importance of some of the soft skills a provider may have, like empathy, compassion, a warm personality, and how you feel when you&#8217;re with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you feel they&#8217;ve demonstrated their expertise, and that your hearing care is their utmost priority, it may not matter if they don&#8217;t &#8220;check all the boxes.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rest assured that when you buy hearing aids, you&#8217;ll almost always have a trial period, so if you think you may have bought from the wrong hearing provider, you&#8217;re usually entitled to a refund if the aids are returned within a certain window of time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ask any experienced hearing aid wearer and they\u2019re likely to agree- Finding a good hearing provider is the single most important part of the hearing aid buying process. Find a good audiologist or hearing aid dispenser, and your investment in hearing aids has the potential to be one of the most life changing purchases you\u2019ve [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":146,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/hearingprovider1.png?fit=277%2C211&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10431"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13594,"href":"https:\/\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10431\/revisions\/13594"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ziphearing.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}