Hear In Private Practice

In our News Watch by David Kirkwood, he reported upon several studies that would be beneficial to us professionals who fit hearing devices. We need to spread the word of these studies, through our office as well as our professional contacts. The first thing we need to communicate  is that hearing devices really are working.  The study from the Better

Every day I am amazed at how technology has changed my perspective on the world.  I was chatting with my father recently about how I used to write my reports using the shelf lined with encyclopedias in the basement.  I still remember just looking through them and I recall some of the pictures that fascinated me.  Now, when my children

Since the beginning, our practice has sent letters to patients for their birthdays and, especially, for hearing aid warranty renewals, since many of manufacturers will renew warranties through five years.  After the manufacturer warranty renewals expire, we still send reminders for annual exams and then introduce incentives to upgrade.  When the manufacturers’ warranties are no longer available, third party hearing

One of my favorite stories from a mentor of mine, Dr. Earl Harford, started with an innocent question from his daughter.  “Daddy, what do you do all day?”  He said he thought about all of the hearing exams, hearing aid fittings, follow ups, and he just could not find a nice concise way of telling his young daughter what he

An Elevator Speech (statement or pitch) is something simple that many of us do, I am sure, without knowing.  This little pitch is how you describe yourself and what you do in as little as 30 seconds to 2 minutes.  This time period is approximately the span of an elevator ride.  It can be done in several different forms, by

Last week there was an article in the New York Times{{1}}[[1]] https://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/02/health/policy/02consumer.html [[1]]about waiting times in physicians offices.  In the Hearing Health Industry we sometimes divide ourselves into a “medical” model or a “retail” model.  There are strengths in each and we should draw from both, but in terms of staying on time with appointments the retail model will bode

What type of information do we share with our patients (or clients) about hearing in public places.  We have touched on looping, but how much “in the know” are we about Closed Captioning?  Yes, most all TVs have this option, but more theaters and play houses are offering this option for the Hard of Hearing.  This is a link for

Hello! For this week, I have my first Guest Blogger! George Mathis has been in the industry for many years and we have had a great working relationship for 16 of those. When I moved to Arizona in 1995 I was in his territory with the manufacturer he worked with. I was also only a few years out of Graduate

I was at my Woman’s Networking group retreat this past weekend. We were discussing balance in our lives. It was a great exercise to examine what brings me joy and how much time I spend on these activities. There are things about my career that give me joy, but especially my family. So my focus was how to make the

Do you track your patient encounters? How do you measure success? If we look at the latest research from the Better Hearing Institute patients are more satisfied with fewer visits with a structured follow up that includes verification and validation. There was an article by Sergei Kochkin ( https://www.betterhearing.org/pdfs/M8_Verification_Validation_Study.pdf) in The Hearing Review recently to support this. In our offices