Hearing Economics

This post is the beginning of a series that will pop up once in awhile on this site, with the intent of giving instruction on basic Economics concepts in small, hopefully palatable doses.  Today’s concept is Decision Costs, which can be tallied up as either Accounting Costs or, more usefully, as Economic Costs. Say you’ve saved up $40,000 and plan

Hearing Economics is pleased to host a guest blogger this week, and I am even more pleased to take a week off.  This post is the first in what is hoped will be a series on various pricing strategies adopted by those in our field.  We invite others to submit posts describing their Pricing approaches.  For those of you who

  No, TG does not stand for Thanksgiving, but happy Thanksgiving anyway to those readers in the USA.  As we join together, let us give a moment of silence to remember HearUSA. When it’s all said and done, you’re just another number and HearUSA’s number turned out to be #11-23341-EPK. The graphic story is shown above. The blow-by-blow account follows. HearUSA’s

In a matter of months, the big shots at HearUSA went from thinking of the many ways they were going to spend their millions to losing their jobs and getting pennies on the dollar for their shares. (An insider’s view of Spring 2011 at HearUSA) I always thought this next-to-final chapter would be entitled “Clash of the Titans” with Oticon and Siemens

Ship’s log for the HearUSA Enterprise,March-May, 2011. March 17, 2011:  Siemens moves to exercise its rights as a secured creditor to take over HearUSA in an SEC petition containing the reassuring note that it “plans to continue operating HearUSA’s business, but … make significant changes to make them more profitable…”  Comment:  It’s about time. March 16-19, 2011:  Siemens USA President Brian

Last I checked, HearUSA was set to perish on the railroad tracks because it couldn’t or wouldn’t pay its loans to Siemens.{{1}}[[1]]Despite conflicting reports,  HearUSA claimed in its 2009 SEC Annual Report  that “The Company repaid approximately $8.1 million of Siemens debt from the proceeds of this transaction during 2009, as required under the agreement with Siemens.”[[1]] True to form, HearUSA’s

The HearUSA-AARP contract (posts 15 and 16 of this series) is captured best by the question:  What were they thinking? Siemens was thinking that it was a “crummy deal” according to one shareholder.   HearUSA’s CEO Steve Hansbrough seems to have been thinking how much smarter HearUSA was than manufacturers like Siemens.  In an interview with audiologyonline, Mr Hansbrough did not portray the manufacturers as the

This just in, as an addendum to this week’s post on AARP-HearUSA! Some of the 6,000,000 AARP members in need of hearing help — previously feared missing — have been found attending the recent AARP convention in Los Angeles. As predicted by HearUSA, they stood in line to have their hearing checked — at least 12 of them did.  Not

HearUSA anticipated targeted growth of 15-20% from the AARP agreement{{1}}[[1]] Morningstar Document. Form 10-K. Hearing USA Inc., filed 3/26/2010.[[1]] and offices mushrooming to 5000 “across all 50 states and the U.S. territories.”{{2}}[[2]]HearUSA Partnership with AARP. audiologyonline interview with Stephen Hansbrough, HearUSA CEO, 9/15/2008.[[2]]  Wildly optimistic can not do justice to those projections.  Revenues plunged in 2009, but that was a good year compared

On August 11, 2009, the ink finally dried on an exclusive licensing agreement between HearUSA and AARP{{1}}[[1]]The agreement was first signed on 8/8/08 but it took a year to iron out the details through several amendments. Technically, the agreement was with AARP Services Inc., the vendor that handles the for-profit side of AARP[[1]]  giving them a reported 9% boost in