The Metaphor Monologues: Unhealthy Practices
A previous post described Baumol’s “cost disease” as a metaphorical affliction of personal services ranging from hair care to audiology, all requiring face-to-face service delivery. In his book on the topic, Baumol identified the wage market conundrum facing audiology practices that dispense manufactured devices, using an illustrative example of 2% wage increases across the board:…
Read MoreThe Metaphor Monologues: Hearing Healthcare Has a Chronic Disease
Pay no attention to the blunt and horrifying title, a crude attempt to capture your attention. Now that you’re here, please contain your outrage and read on to learn the nature and symptoms of the disease, how the diagnosis was made, and what is prognosticated. On Disease In healthcare, practitioners comb the mortal…
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Treating the Right Patient with the Right Service at the Right Time: Thriving in the Era of Managed Care and OTCs
by Brian Taylor “Signal & Noise” is a bimonthly column by Brian Taylor, AuD. The first two installments of this series in Signal and Noise column were devoted to the use of some relatively routine clinical measurements as part of the practice of “good audiology”. The basic message of those previous columns was this: Audiologists…
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Costco Growth – Get Your Hot Dogs and Hearing Aids Here!
Costco growth has always been spectacular since its inception as a single warehouse in Seattle in 1983. Starting from scratch, Costco was the first company to grow sales to $3B in less than six years. By 2015, it ranked #2 in global retailing, just behind Walmart. The Big Box That Always Thinks Outside the Box …
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The Well Being of Older Adults: The Role of Audiology
Downstream Consequences of Aging is a bi-monthly series written by guest columnist Barbara Weinstein, PhD. Today’s post is especially timely, coinciding with yesterday’s announcement of a bipartisan bill being introduced by U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) entitled the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2016 which aims to reduce cost and increase…
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