Sorry for bumping the thread but I'm looking for hearing aids for my Mom. The prices vary, and I wonder if a high price usually means high quality. What should I pay attention to? Maybe brand?
No problem w/ the bump. I talked to a Dr. of Aud. who was the daughter of a long time customer of my mechanic friend. She had recently married and moved back to Ohio from California and was now working for the VA. Since she was never going to treat me, I thought her comments were very useful. She (and two other D of A's) said any of the major brands are pretty much equivalent, regardless of their claims. As soon as one mfr comes up with an improvement, everyone else follows, maybe a few months behind.
I went to half a dozen places, and my costs varied from around $3000 to $4900, with one major hospital quoting $7000 - all for the same brand and model (last was clearly the list price). Your cost in the UK will be significantly different. The big problem for buying this high cost device is most laymen are not familiar with the hardware and features. The major manufacturers try to snow you with ad copy and terms that are meaningful only to them. The best you can do is read up ABOUT hearing aids online - there is a Lot of info out there. Pepper your audiologist with questions. In the end, its all about you having confidence in a good provider. I found that here, every provider was pushing one brand over all the others, but they would happily provide any brand I requested. For the top brands and within a given tier (or quality level) the price was either the same or varied only a little bit. The providers often did not know everything about the hardware they were selling. I've repeatedly managed to ask questions to my provider that she had to call support to answer - and this was her recommended brand.
Features features features. It is hard to know which ones are very useful before you have had the aids for a while, and my experience is probably not transferable to you. For example, my Oticon (brand) behind the ear aids not only link (BTooth) to my iPhone, but have 4 programs. One is noisy environment (restaurant) that emphasizes speach frequencies, another is auto that kills the left ear* (away from passenger), etc. I have found these differences to be subtle and not very useful. I do make frequent use of the phone to increase or decrease the volume, and since the phone is linked, I talk to people on the phone through my hearing aids - and listen to music.
Getting back to your question, in the US, there seem to be three levels - call them basic, featured, and loaded. Some providers call them silver, gold, platinum or by other names. Moving from brand to brand within one level should yield you similar features, but moving up or down will add or lose the gewgaws. The different levels are different qualities - at the low end the hearing aid might have a dozen separately adjustable frequency ranges, while the same brand's 'Platinum level might have two dozen ranges. The audiologist will program the hearing aid to boost the frequencies your ear has lost and will attenuate those frequencies you hear perfectly well. For some folks, the economy level works fine, for others, the Platinum or Deluxe level is perfect. Ask your provider your question, and listen closely to what he/she says and how your question is answered.
* My program will obviously be different than yours.
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