Hearing Economics

Growth and Prosperity   Having proudly served their community for decades, Hometown Audiology helped thousands of patients, often multi-generation families, to improve their hearing ability. As well-respected clinicians, Dr. Kim Miller’s team empowered those entrusted in their care to hear and understand better, at home, work and play, every day. From fellow healthcare providers to teachers, from first responders to

by Amyn M Amlani, PhD Today’s blog, Part 3, is the last in the series, “Pricing in Hearing Healthcare: Which Race are You Running?” Thus far, we have covered the: Developing market segmentation occurring in hearing healthcare (Part 1), and the Negative effect (i.e., cannibalization) of reduced retail pricing on total revenue, consumer purchase intent, and market brand within the

Tis the season   Baby it’s cold out there, especially for the ears. Hence, the recurring, much-appreciated winter theme when inventors think up new ear warmers (D871677) and ear covering systems (10500098). The latter patent addresses an emerging technology-wrought crisis of sorts — how to keep ears warm while streaming music through earbuds.  The inventor’s solution is a set of

Dear Readers: During this holiday season, the editors at Hearing Health & Technology Matters (HHTM) are taking some time off. However, we are not leaving you without anything to read on our blog this week. Instead, we are publishing a special holiday edition filled with what we call our Readers’ Choices. Our Readers’ Choices featured this week are the posts

Home Alone with Your Ear Devices Zipline Health’s patent #10463241 laments time lost and illness exacerbated by the inconvenient fact that “diagnosing external and middle ear infections requires a live in-person physician appointment and consultation.” The ear’s unclaimed territory beckons as a solution (image above). Zipline envisions  fully-loaded earpieces–light source, magnification lens, air conduction channel, miniature camera–coupled to an air

by Amyn M Amlani, PhD In Part 1 of the series on “Pricing in Hearing Healthcare: Which Race are You Running?,” the reader was provided with an overview of the supply-side’s strategy to reduce retail prices to encourage product uptake/adoption. Such a strategy, it was contended, supported the transition of hearing healthcare from a predominately provider-based market segment to a

Behold, The Pinna Pinnas are visible and cute (e.g., Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty and feature image). Historically, pinnas offered a popular form of corporal punishment and a quick sketch of evil-doers in 19th century German literature (“What big ears you have, Grandma”). And that’s about it.1 Audiologists tend to view the ear inside-out, focusing on inner ear sound processing functionality

Ears Gone Wild   With the proliferation of voice assistants talking to an even greater proliferation of IoT devices, not to mention everybody talking at once, it’s a jungle out there. Orion Labs, among others, considers the advantages of facilitated linking of user devices to other communication devices so wearers can figure out what’s up in group situations (#10402612).  In

by Amyn M Amlani, PhD In hearing healthcare, price continues to be a hot-button topic of discussion among consumers, providers, advocacy groups, legislators, professional organizations, and manufacturers of consumer electronic products and traditional hearing aids. The fundamental issue is that consumers and their supporters believe the costs associated with and the value received in treating impaired hearing are misaligned. This

by Amyn M Amlani, PhD The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 432 million adults, globally, exhibit “disabled” impaired hearing, where disabled is defined as audiometric thresholds greater than 40 dB in the better ear. An additional estimated 1.1 billion listeners worldwide—ranging in age between 12 and 35 years—are at-risk of demonstrating impaired hearing because of high-level exposure stemming from