Time To Read: 25 minutes
Choosing a hearing aid is critically important because a wrong decision could haunt you for years. Part of the problem comes from how hearing aids are currently selected as well as retailer bias. Around 80% of clinics in Australia are owned by manufacturers, which may limit the options available to you. Many more only supply a handful of models, suited to their levels of profitability, rather than to your needs.
You might choose to do your own research, but with hundreds of models available to you, this is an almost impossible task. What makes things worse is that a hearing aid that might work exceptionally well for one person, may not suit another at all. So there is NO benefit to just asking around when it comes to choosing the hearing aid that will work best for you. The question of which hearing aid to select is a tricky one, requiring a detailed answer. I'll do my best to answer this for you below.
A less than perfect hearing aid in the ear is MUCH BETTER than the perfect, best hearing aid, sitting in a drawer.
As hearing professionals, we are always aiming to prescribe the best solutions to our clients within the resources available to us. Sometimes our optimal choice for you is not one you would ever consider wearing.
In circumstances like these, which fortunately are few and far between, both parties have to compromise. A good clinician needs to ensure that you are fully informed about why your preferred style might not be best suited to them. You need to understand that your first choice leads to compromises in your hearing improvement. You need to take the information that you are given seriously and not be hamstrung by a purely emotional hearing aid choice.
A classic example of this is a client with an unsuitable hearing loss wanting an invisible hearing aid. The clinician would go through all the pros and cons of these very small hearing aids and the client might still decide they would wear nothing else. The clinician will then proceed to prescribe the best-suited device within these limitations.
Personally, I would often demonstrate my recommendation to the client first, so that the decision is based on some experience rather than just assumptions.
Further to this, you need to be motivated to address your hearing loss with hearing aids to have any chance of success, irrespective of the style of hearing aid.
The minimum period of average daily hearing aid use is around four (4) hours use per day to be considered a successful user. Many of our clients average eight (8) or more hours of use per day which, is a common result of them selecting their best hearing aid.
The amount of usage time relates to many factors:
It is up to your hearing specialist to ensure that there aren’t any issues limiting your use to less than four (4) hours per day on average.
You should also keep this minimum figure in mind as less usage per day tends to lead to a situation where you might stop wearing the instruments despite it providing benefit in some situations. We have an article discussing the issue of non-use here.
Follow-ups after the initial fitting are critical to achieving consistent and beneficial use. Modern digital hearing aids keep data logging information that clearly shows the clinician what your average daily use was since you last saw them.
Longer-term recalls ensure that this usage does not start tapering off over time. If it does, then the clinician can do something about it to help you achieve a long-term benefit. As such at least six (6) monthly clinician visits are recommended. Have a look at our client journey to see what a solid plan for long-term benefit looks like.
Each individual with hearing loss has different hearing loss configuration and severity (audiogram). Modern hearing aids can be adjusted by the clinician to suit a range of hearing loss. This is great news because it means that even if your hearing loss changes a bit, your hearing aid can keep up.
Hearing aids come in all shapes and sizes and many are quite small.
Your clinician needs to ensure that you are able to handle any hearing aid prescribed to you. You also need to be able to effectively keep it clean and operational; otherwise, you might run into difficulties with the device breaking down later in its life. To see what sort of care might be required, we have a troubleshooting guide available here.
During your initial hearing test, you should be asked to repeat some words in quiet. This test is designed to determine your maximum speech understanding in quiet as a percentage of sounds /words correct.
A properly selected and carefully fitted hearing aid should allow you to hear at least this well in quiet. A poorly selected and fitted option may make things too loud; soft or could even cause distortion. This may negatively affect your ability to understand speech even in relatively easy situations, like in quiet.
NOTE: If your measured ability to hear speech in quiet is poor, then you cannot expect even the best hearing aid to give you any better understanding of speech than your brain is capable of processing.
There should be no difference between a basic or premium hearing aid that is properly fit when it comes to improving your hearing in quiet.
One certainly needs to ensure that you select a hearing aid with the best possible sound quality to maximise enjoyment, but this is available in all levels of technology. Some technologies are critical to the best sound quality.
Hearing aids differ immensely in their ability clear up speech in the presence of background noise. This difference is not only between manufacturers but is even more noticeable between different technology levels.
To be able to accurately select your best hearing that will also work for you in noise, one needs to take into account your inability to understand speech in noise using a speech-in-noise test. These results can the
Note: Unfortunately most hearing tests available in Australia today don’t include speech in noise testing. Even if they do, we are not aware of any other that actually matches technology’s ability to improve speech in noise to an individual’s inability to understand speech in noise as precisely as our unique process does. Value Hearing includes speech in noise testing as standard in all our tests and it is a vital part of our hearing aid selection process.
We have an article here which details what to expect from a comprehensive hearing assessment.
Hearing aids have many features which are lifestyle dependent. These include wind noise cancellation, speech in car, special music settings, theatre and phone options.
Your best hearing solution should allow you to use it in a variety of situations with as little bother as possible. We find that too many little issues add up and may result in you giving up on the solution over time.
Note: Most providers use lifestyle to recommend a certain level of hearing technology based on how active you are in noisy situations (e.g. Restaurants). This approach assumes an average (poor) speech-understanding-in-noise score (see the point above) and often leads to over-prescription of hearing aids (selling you pricey technology you don’t need). The ability of the brain to clean up speech in noise is conveniently ignored in this approach. Younger, more active people, who actually tend to have better natural ability to hear in noise, are then recommended very expensive hearing aids, with features they don’t need.
We have an article dedicated to explaining the quality differences between different levels of technology here.
Why pay for the hearing aid to do things your brain is much better able to do once it can just hear?
Once you know all the things you need to consider to find your best hearing aid, you need to look at which device covers all these factors. You don't want to overshoot your needs as it will tend to be more expensive (without providing additional benefits). Undershooting your needs might lead to dissatisfaction and disappointment over the long term.
Sometimes an individual’s hearing might be too poor for any hearing aid to fully correct. This does not mean that you won’t receive any benefit; you just need to understand what to realistically expect. There are also a variety of accessories that can improve the hearing aid's performance in a multitude of situations.
Being aware of your unique limitations with hearing aids will help avoid disappointment and can also open the door for exploring additional technologies to improve your ability to effectively communicate and engage.
Knowing what you need is one t
Sometimes you need to make compromises when considering your best hearing aid due to financial concerns.
There is assistance available from Private Health insurance and payment plans exist.
Just make sure you don’t compromise to the level where you won’t use the hearing aid due to any of the issues discussed earlier.
We have an article dedicated to the funding options for hearing aids in Australia.
NOTE: Hearing aid prices in Australia are not regulated. Find out how any quotes you have received elsewhere compares here.
A question we get asked regularly is, why don't we just list hearing aid prices online?
Even though we offer exceptionally good value on our hearing aids, we choose not to list prices because:
Make sure you are ready to put in the time and a little bit of effort to make the hearing solution work. The hearing aid is just a part of the solution. Your brain needs time to adjust and for that to happen you need to consistently use it. Even the best hearing aid does not improve hearing if it is not worn.
The vast majority of hearing clinics in Australia are tied to specific manufacturers. This may severely limit your choice to mainly those devices they supply. Ask the provider if they are independent and make sure they have access to at least 4 or 5 different brands. This dramatically increased your odds of finding your best hearing aid.
Hearing tests can be had pretty much anywhere and vary in cost from free to a couple of hundred dollars. The cost is not really a determinant of the quality of the assessment.
What is more telling is the time spent (look for at least 90 minute appointments) and what tests are included.
Many hearing assessments are like two-legged stools. They only assess your hearing severity and ability to hear speech in quiet (some tests even leave this out!). They do not perform a critical speech in noise test, needed to accurately identify the ideal level of technology, which makes up the third leg of the stool.
So always ask: “Do you use speech-in-noise testing as part of your test?”.
If this is done, you should be presented with sentences you need to repeat in the presence of background noise (pub-like noise, NOT hissing) during the test.
Just the fact that a provider performs a speech in noise test, does not mean they use this in the hearing aid selection process.
Be wary of providers who focus on your budget and/or shows you charts with different technologies, where the more active you are socially the more expensive hearing aids you require.
They often give you multiple choices and you have to pick one. How are you supposed to know which is your best hearing aid, if they can't tell you?
Ask them: “how does this relate to my hearing in noise results?”
After a comprehensive, empowering hearing assessment, you should have absolute clarity on the nature of your hearing loss, what to do about it and what your best hearing aid or next step is.
If this is not the case, ask questions. It is your hearing and you will have to live with the recommended solution for a long time (5+ Years)
The first option is often advertised along the lines of an open day or “We need 30 participants for a research project on the latest hearing aids….”. Alternatively, hearing aid trials can be used as a proof of concept only.
In this trial situation, you actually purchase your prescribed best hearing aid and then have a period of up to 60 days during which you can return the hearing aids if you are not satisfied for any reason. There may also be an opportunity to exchange for another model if the initial recommendation proves to be less than ideal with use.
The advantages of this approach are:
Most clinics offer a money back guarantee. The period for the guarantee may be as short as 14 days and as long as 60 days. Some money back guarantees allow a full refund, while others are just partial.
Obviously a longer money back (trial) period is better and a full refund is better than a partial one. Make sure you ask about the provider’s money back guarantee policy.
As an example, Value Hearing offers a 60 Day Full Money Back Guarantee, to ensure that the hearing aid you choose is really the best hearing aid for you.
