I tried Hear.com’s home prescription hearing aid test
Put them aside Excessive costs, prescription issues hearing aid Here is the prescription. Find a doctor. Get a reservation. Please sit in the waiting room. I’ve been tested for an hour before getting a hard cell with a pair of hearing aids. Why all the insults of it is even worse than deafness.
Telehealth provides a faint light in the solution, but as everyone who has tried to show off their moles to a doctor via a smartphone camera knows, video technology can get you so far. Auditory testing requires important one-to-one interactions and many technologies to back it up. every Audiogram I was sitting It is located in a sophisticated soundproof room.
hear.com– Companies selling prescription hearing aids online and through traditional retail channels are taking workarounds. Place all the technology needed to perform a complete hearing test in the box, mail it along with a set of prescription hearing aids, and walk the whole thing with an audiologist via video call. I took two virtual hearing tests from Hear.com. This is what the Tele-Hearing exam looks like.
It’s all online
Photo: Chris Null
Photo: Chris Null
The process begins With a simple discussion. If you’ve never shown your hearing aids, this is probably a good first step. Veterans may skip it, especially if they know the model hearing aids they want (or how much they want to use). Salespeople at Hear.com discuss hearing loss, hearing aid devices they tried, previous hearing tests, and personal impressions of budget (along with insurance). From there, they will suggest the best hearing aids (from the product line) to meet your needs, but they can also advocate for a specific product if they already have identified them.
Next, set the time for the test and hearing aid fitting, and a few days later the box will arrive right by. Opening it may seem daunting to see the tangle of the hardware collection and the wires connecting it together, but don’t worry about even a small amount of technical knowledge.
Despite a substantial amount of gear inside, the box is organized enough to get you. On top, you will find Microsoft Surface Tablet It was stripped to do just one thing. It serves as a conduit for video-based audiology sessions. There is a USB breakout box that connects the surface to the wall power source, then to the USB port on your Surface. Assuming that all the other devices are still properly connected to that USB breakout box (this is not certain; it’s a good thing to make sure everything is perfect), you are effectively good. The surface has no other function than to initiate a call with an audiology expert. You can also tap on the screen button at the scheduled time to start the session.
Photo: Chris Null
Photo: Chris Null
After greeting you, the audiologist will guide you through a series of tests. The first is a physical examination of the ears. This is possible thanks to the included USB-equipped otoscope. This is well known as a bright tool with a black cone-shaped tip that doctors use to examine the ear canal. There is no doctor who will guide the tool with your hands, so the audiologist will teach you how to place it in each ear so that you can see your eardrum closely. And yes, you can see what your doctor is looking at on the screen on the surface. Spoiler: There is more wax in the Eustachian tube than you think.
Can you hear me now?
Assuming there is no physical damage that hinders hearing aid use, it follows traditional hearing testing. This series of tests consumes most of the booking time and involves wearing an oversized noise-separated headset, such as those used by professional musicians in most cases. The test is very familiar to me, starting with the tone played at different frequencies and volume levels of each ear, tapping on the surface screen every time I hear anything.
The test is then repeated on a bone transmission appliance, attaching it to the forehead with a velcro band to see how the sound is handled again. Finally, the third test measures the ability to distinguish between different consonants and vowel sounds.sh vs. chfor example, this is done by repeating words you think you’ve heard many times by an audiologist.