Hearing Health & Technology Matters

Nick Fitzgerald has served as HHTM’s Chief Marketing Officer for the past 3 years. He is the President and Owner of AuDSEO, a full service digital marketing agency. With over 15 years of digital marketing experience, Nick is a highly data-driven marketer, with expertise in search engine optimization, digital analytics and forensics, social media, digital advertising, and web development. He has been involved in the construction and optimization of nearly 1,000 web presences, including some of the largest Fortune 500 companies.

Featured image for “Cost Effectiveness of Access to Hearing Care: An Analysis of CMS Data”

Cost Effectiveness of Access to Hearing Care: An Analysis of CMS Data

Hearing Health & Technology Matters

By Barry Freeman, PhD, and Ian Windmill, PhD The past few decades have been dominated by efforts to control healthcare costs while improving affordability and access to quality care. Hearing care is no exception as demonstrated by the reports of the 2016 NASEM Committee on Accessible and Affordable Hearing Health Care for Adults and the 2016 Report from the President’s

Featured image for “New Pathways to Care: How Self-Directed Care Could Change Audiology….For the Better Part 2”

New Pathways to Care: How Self-Directed Care Could Change Audiology….For the Better Part 2

Hearing Health & Technology Matters

Two broad categories of patients – help seekers with hearing devices and help seekers without hearing devices – will benefit from new forms of counseling and customization in a market landscape where persons with hearing loss can self-direct their care. Part 1 examined self-fitting hearing aids and the role audiologists could play in their selection and use. Part 2 takes

Featured image for “The Metaphor Monologues: In Search of Effective Treatment Options”

The Metaphor Monologues: In Search of Effective Treatment Options

Hearing Health & Technology Matters

Baumol described a chronic economic disease of healthcare and other direct services due to service wages that must rise on the back of stalled productivity while manufacturing labor costs rise naturally on the back of increasing productivity. The result is increasingly expensive (some would say inefficient) services to administer increasingly efficient devices. For dispensing audiologists, Baumol’s cost disease puts us loggerheads

Featured image for “New Pathways to Care: How Patient-Driven Hearing Aids Could Change Audiology….For the Better, Part 1”

New Pathways to Care: How Patient-Driven Hearing Aids Could Change Audiology….For the Better, Part 1

Hearing Health & Technology Matters

New forms of counseling and customization – services that complement existing best practice clinical protocols — are needed for audiology to remain a sustainable profession in the era of patient-driven hearing aid fittings Last Friday, October 5, in what was perceived by many to be a surprise move, the FDA approved a Bose self-fitting hearing aid that can be purchased

Featured image for “Research to Practice: Futureproofing UK Hearing Aid Provision & The Need for Strong Clinical Evidence to Guide the Decision-making Process”

Research to Practice: Futureproofing UK Hearing Aid Provision & The Need for Strong Clinical Evidence to Guide the Decision-making Process

Hearing Health & Technology Matters

by Melanie Ferguson, PhD In a teleconference of the American Academy of Audiology (AAA) Strategic Documents committee last week, someone made a comment that if audiologists are charging insurance companies for a service, this needs to be supported by evidence and guidelines. Good point. In the UK about three years ago we had exactly the same discussion. In 2015, a

Featured image for “US Ear Device Patents in August 2018”

US Ear Device Patents in August 2018

Hearing Health & Technology Matters

Sometimes it’s the little things in life that require attention, such as how to keep track of your sunglasses and Hearables (c.f. USPTO #10052235: Lanyard with integrated ear plugs and retractable sheath). Sometimes it’s the little ones in life that deserve attention. “Headset enabling extraordinary hearing” (USPTO #10051372 ) by Bose doesn’t bestow auditory superpowers on children. But it does teach them about sound

Dr. Cliff Compares Kirkland Signature to its Name Brand Counterparts

Hearing Health & Technology Matters

Costco now accounts for approximately 12% of the United States hearing aid market. No doubt this is largely in part to their Kirkland Signature brand hearing aids. However, the feature that makes these devices so popular is also the feature that makes consumers question their capabilities – the price. At $1,600 a pair, consumers are right to question the

Featured image for “Improving Patient Engagement with Hearables and PSAPs”

Improving Patient Engagement with Hearables and PSAPs

Hearing Health & Technology Matters

With the FDA expected to publish initial guidelines for Over-the-Counter hearing aids as early as this fall, the time is now for audiologists to formulate their product and service strategies for responding to deregulation. My recommendation–as an expert in business strategy and patient engagement, a hearing health advocate, and a person with hearing loss—is that audiologists conduct market tests now

Featured image for “The Metaphor Monologues: Treatment Options for Chronic Cost Disease of Hearing Healthcare”

The Metaphor Monologues: Treatment Options for Chronic Cost Disease of Hearing Healthcare

Hearing Health & Technology Matters

This series’ first post introduced William J Baumol’s theory of economic cost disease, manifest in personal service professions’ and industries’ reliance on fixed-time, face-to-face encounters to deliver and perfect the goods. Generally stated, Baumol’s conundrum is that service wages must rise on the back of stalled productivity while manufacturing labor costs rise naturally on the back of increasing productivity. The

Featured image for “Audiology: An Introspection, Part 2”

Audiology: An Introspection, Part 2

Hearing Health & Technology Matters

By Robert Castleton Wormus “The history of audiology, as well as general information about its scope, and who practices it, must be rewritten, and peer reviewed by audiologists. To be continued.” Part Two That’s where I left off in part one of Audiology: An Introspection. I realized the can of worms I was opening, but couldn’t avoid it. Audiology is