Episode 4: Special Interview with hearing aid wearer Jean G. (Part 2 of 2)

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Welcome back to the Heroes of Hearing Podcast. I am Russell Broadhead, and we have been talking with Jean about her past 15 years with hearing aids and her experience with Heroes of Hearing, and part two is coming up. So the big question is this, how do we help family and friends that are developing hearing loss? Navigate their changing world and guide them to the treatment they won't admit they need. That's the question, and this podcast will give you the answer. My name is Russell Broadhead and welcome to the Heroes of Hearing Podcast.

Your main concern was, Hey, I don't want people to know I have hearing aids. They're gonna see 'em make fun of me, or whatever it might have been, but it sounded like when you got 'em, Nobody had even noticed that you even were wearing hearing aids. And that's awesome. And that's what's great about where hearing aids are now.

They're so much smaller, not just that, but there's more people that have listening devices in their ears, whether it be a Bluetooth headset for someone that has no hearing loss to those that have hearing hearing aids and have something in their ears. And I had a patient who had the same struggle. His biggest concern was, Hey, I don't want people to know I have hearing aids. And I pretty much said to him, I said, well, to me when I have somebody talking to me and they keep saying, huh, what? Uh, beg your pardon? Can you repeat that? Or ask 'em a question? And they just shake their head. And I, and I know they didn't hear me cuz they're just shaking their head as if like they're agreeing to, and I ask 'em a question that to me says, Hey, there's a problem.

And it's such a big it, it. I notice it, but somebody that's wearing a hearing aid that's able to hear me and we're able to have a conversation, I don't notice that they have hearing aids in. And I'm a little bit different since I'm in the profession, since I focus on helping people here. I, I do stand in grocery lines and look in people's ear canals. I guess that's a, a little quirk about me, but most of the time we're not. And I found that I was at a, an event and I was talking with somebody. And it took me a good 10 minutes to then finally realize that he was wearing a hearing aid. Because when we talk with people, we're not looking at their ears, we're looking right in their eyes. Or if we have hearing loss, we're looking at their lips cuz we're trying to figure out what they're saying. But it sounds like that's, again, you're not alone cuz there's lots of people that think that same thing. People are gonna notice it. Hearing aids make me look old. And they don't, and that's the thing that's changing is you have hearing loss that now is affecting so many different demographics that today, one in five teenagers have some type of hearing loss.

And we'll talk about that in another episode. But the biggest thing is, is it's not just for those that are retired. Yeah, yeah. People are in their thirties and their twenties that are wearing hearing aids and just like glasses and how there was that stigma with glasses. And now all of a sudden we don't have that stigma with glasses anymore. That's starting to happen with hearing aids or hearing devices. As we start to see more people wear things in their ears, and most people don't even know the difference anymore. Rather, you're listening to a phone or music because they've got so many different things, devices on their use nowadays that nobody even knows other hearing aids anymore. Yep. That's true the vanity was never one of my problems. So as far as what, what can you think of that might be some other concerns that people have in regards to getting help and why they wait? The cost. They don't have money to pay for hearing aids. Yeah. So when we look at hearing devices, they're not, they're not cheap. They're quite an investment. We can start to talk about the word expensive and what I feel the word expensive means, whenever you pay for a service or you pay for something and you don't get out what you were expecting or felt like you were supposed to get, then that thing becomes expensive And that can be with anything, but when you feel like you're getting a greater value out of something that you purchased, Then it's not expensive. And that's the biggest thing with a lot of people when they think of, they look at the cost of hearing devices, they think, oh, there's just one price and there's not, there's many different hearing devices.

There's many different price points and there's, and not just that, there's different options. And if, do different hearing aids do more for you than some of the other ones do. That there's different, your hearing can be moderate hearing loss or more of a hearing loss medium hearing loss. So if you have more hearing loss, if you know that you've got more hearing loss, you people will sell you a hearing aid. But is it going to help you? Well, and that's but your problem. And I think that's the biggest question that a lot of people have and they don't know. And if they have to go and pay thousands of dollars to then test it out and then have to pay a deposit or a restocking fee because it didn't work out for them, well, yeah, it makes it, I'm not gonna go down and buy a car and not go drive it around. Like you want to be able to test drive it or have some type of security knowing that if this doesn't work for you, That there's a way out. And, and that's one of the, the great things that we offer here, is that you have an opportunity to hear what it sounds like with hearing devices if you haven't worn devices before. Then the other question or the other problem is, well, I gotta put all this money down all at once, and you don't. We have options where we can here's payment plans through Care Credit or Wells Fargo or other, um, avenues that we have for medical expenses where it can get broken down and there's no interest plans and there's some that do charge interest that can extend it further out.

But when you're paying a hundred or a couple hundred dollars a month, and that helps within your budget, Well, then all of a sudden you can get those better hearing devices that are gonna help you hear better when you go to a restaurant and a crowd and, and that's due stream, right to your, your phone, right to your ears, and have other things in them that in a sense, improve the quality of life that you have. You don't just sell us a hearing aids, you help us learn how to use them. Yeah, and I guess that's one of the biggest things that's different here at Heroes of Hearing. It's not about selling hearing aids. I don't, I don't sell hearing aids. We provide hearing aids, but that's not, I'm not a salesperson. I'm not, I'm here to provide better hearing healthcare. And that's what the difference is with Heroes of Hearing. When you come in, we're helping you get the, the results that you're looking for. It's not about, okay, you bought a hearing, you'd see you later. Give us a call if it ever breaks down. That's, that's not our philosophy. That's not how we do things. We want to be proactive. We want you to be hearing the best you can. And if something's wrong, we wanna fix it. We wanna fix it right away. So, um, thank you. Thank you for that, Jean. So what specifically are your favorite parts about your new hearing aids? They are programmable for. The problem that you have in hearing. Yeah. So they're custom fit to you and your hearing loss. And what about, your pH the phone that was really with the new phones, these hearing aids are compatible with them. You can hear, they can be set up for you to hear the phone ring in your hearing aids that you're hearing. You're hearing the phone in your hearing aids, not in a distance. Yeah. And you were talking about that a little earlier. You were talking about how you were bowling and why you were bowling. You can hear, you're hearing a, your, somebody was calling you at the bowling alley. And you could hear it right in your hearing aid when the phone was deep in your purse.

So it sounds like, again, that feature of being able to have the phone call streamed to both ears and being able to hear having it like a direct feed into your ears has made it a lot easier on the phone and with the conversations that, that you've, that you've had as far as all the different options.

I know a lot of people get tons of advertisements in the mail. Free this, free this, we're gonna give you a gift card, we're gonna give you this and this. And it can cause people to become very confused because now all of a sudden it's like, well, who do I go to? What's, what's separating them? What's making them different? As we look at Heroes of Hearing overall, what. How have, how have we, how are we different than some of the other hearing centers that you've come across? They work with you so that you understand your hearing aids and how they work. So it sounds like the biggest thing that we did was just help you understand why you're struggling, why these things are happening. So the education on just overall hearing, but not just that. Helping you with the hearing devices and showing you, and, and, and walking you through how to use them and especially how to get them to talk to your phone.

So Jean, another question I have for you. If someone was to call you and say, Why should I do business with Heroes of Hearing, or why should I buy hearing aids from Russell? What? What would you tell them? Because he is selling you not just hearing aids, he's selling you the service for your hearing aids. That's part of your hearing aids, that he's gonna make sure your hearing aids work for you, to make everything in your life better. And what are some of those benefits that you've experienced as a result of getting hearing aids from Heroes of Hearing? You're not constantly telling somebody, I can't hear you, I'm not understanding what you're saying.

You're gonna have to repeat that. So just being able to get better clarity and understand people has been a huge benefit for you. Yes. What surprised you the most? Or made you the most happy about the service we've provided for you. He made you understand how the hearing aids work and went and goes over everything with you. And solves any problems that you have with the hearing aids so that you are satisfied with the hearing aids when you get 'em. So it sounds like just having us there walking beside you and not just having you be all by yourself has, has helped tremendously. Yes. All right. Well I appreciate, uh, you taking the time. To share with us your story and kind of what you've been going through with your hearing. I am very glad that I come to see Russell for getting my new hearing aids because they are a lot different from the other ones I've had, but they also are very beneficial to me the way that they woke.

Thank you. Thank you very much. We appreciate you as a patient and appreciate your time and, and coming on with us today. And wish you all the best in the future and like we've said before, if there's anything we can do to help, just let us know. That's why we're here. Again, this is Russell Broadhead with Heroes of Hearing.

Thanks for listening today and, uh, we'll see you in our next episode.