How to Improve Your Hearing, Part 2 with Hope Lanter

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following is a podcast from a qualified senior care provider, hurt, on the answers for elders radio show. And Welcome back everyone to the answers for elders radio network. And I am here with Hope Lanter, who is the chief audiologist, lead Ali Alla, audiologist of Hear.com. And again I have asked Hear.com to come onto my show again because of a recent interview we did two weeks ago with Jason Sargeant. We got a lot of response I had. We posted things out on social media and, Lo and behold on my goodness, it was amazing. We you know, I had a bunch of friends say, you know, I really need to do something about this, but I’m not ready yet. And that’s the thing that’s really interesting, because I was there a month ago. I understand that feeling of you know, maybe I you know, I need to do something about this, quote unquote, some day kind of thing. So I guess my question to you, hope, is I know this is obviously a common scenario and we and our listeners may have people in their lives that they know. You know, maybe your spouse or you know a sister or a brother. You’re going like Oh my gosh, I wish they do something about their hearing. And yet going on to this process, it’s so easy. Could you kind of explain to me, like what happens, hope, from the beginning through the process of, you know, to determine how your fit properly, and so obviously you’re going to the website and one thing to mention there is that, you know, we here not coming down the website. It’s not just about filling out a questionnaire only. There’s a resource center there. There are tons of articles, articles even written for a loved one to be able to help somebody to take those next steps. But you know, pretty much everything that you can think of is probably covered in terms of being able to say, well, I have one more question, one more question, and they’re all going to be covered there. But in terms of, you know, once you filled out that questionnaire, our goal is to have someone call you within generally about ten to fifteen minutes of you submitting that, that that questionnaire results there, and so you know the the goal is also then to be able to talk to you about your lifestyle. You know, where you experiencing difficulty? I’m you know, how long have you experienced this difficulty you have you weren’t hearing, is before really talking about you as a whole person, of understanding what is your budget? You know, what are your needs, talking about your insurance, you will that cover any portion of this? You really looking at every aspect that we can to make sure that we have the right, right picture. From there, we then we qualify all the providers we were with, taught providers across the nation. We have over one, thus fifteen hundred riders in our network that we can then match you two, so we can find somebody who’s local for you, but also someone who has then, you know, vetted through our process as well, and then the goal is to get you through their doors as quickly as possible. With the our journeys. What we want also want to do is be able to have a device sitting there waiting for you, if you know the test determines that you absolutely need a hearing eight, that you could then be fit with it that day and walk out of there with it met in that moment. That was what was amazing, because when I went through the my first hearing test, first of all, I mean it was right on the Swedish hospital campus and edmunds where I went, which was amazing. I mean Swedish, just the the you know, their gold standard here in Seattle, and so I felt comfortable right away with going in and meeting with the audiologists locally that have this direct relationship with you guys, and the thing that was so incredible is that they went to work for me just as sincerely as possible. They double checked my insurance for me. They they gave me some other options if that was something I wanted to go so it wasn’t. Again, I they weren’t pushing me into your product. I ultimately ended up choosing your product, but I had a choice and it was totally fine with you know, with Jason, when I talked to him, it’s like, well, you know, this is another option for me, but when my husband, Keith and I discussed it, it was like no, I’m going to go with the signia because it’s a higher technology and we’re going to talk about that next, because I felt like this is something that I had going to have, hopefully the rest of my life, right, that they’ll last, and so I wanted the top of the line technology. But I think the other thing is was just the level of time that they took with me. It wasn’t I didn’t feel rush through, I didn’t feel like I couldn’t ask questions. I asked a million questions and and and it was just really an amazing experience, not only for me, but I think it was a good for my husband that when he was in the room when I was having a hearing test and they’re looking at this panel and you know, they play sounds right and and there was a lot of times at those sounds were played to me and the light would come on and he would see it and I didn’t respond and all of a sudden it was the reality to him. You know, my wife really is hard of hearing. It’s not a joke and I hit so was. It helped us in our relationship, helped him with understanding a lot more about where we were. And so, you know, I understanding that there was no pressure, even from the audiologist when I went in there, and that was the thing that was so amazing. So so you guys obviously work pretty closely with the local audiologist, don’t you guess? Exactly? And so everything that is discussed and they phone consultation, we basically will send over what we call a customer profile to the provider so that that way they have all of that information ahead of time so that they understand, you know everything that in terms of the process it’s leading up to their they know everything that’s happened and the plan that basically has been discussed with you on the phone there. And then, of course, as we know, are phrase always goes is that the final recommendation remains with the providers. So you know, if they see something in testing or they discover something in conversation with you there that determines that we need to take it a different direction than obviously that’s what we want to support. So we know, based on having that conversation about lifestyle and budget, that gives us a really good idea of what device will most likely be the best for you. But in terms of as I say, it ends up being a discussion between you and the provider in the end and to making sure that it is the really color will best step for you well, and it was nice that I had options. You know, I think about you know, I didn’t feel like this is the product you’re getting. You know, when you walk in, it was like, you know, let’s try these other ones to I you know, this is an option. This is you know, they will be less expensive than the herecom ones, but I ultimately chose to go with yourcom because the technology, and we’re going to talk about that in our next segment. But I really want to share with our our listeners the fact that if you had know of somebody or that you’re dealing with hearing loss, there may be a chance that you don’t have. You know, is there a point? I guess where you’re carrying off is so slight that you don’t necessarily qualify for hearing it’s just that is that. I’m sure there’s a there’s a benchmark of some soon. I mean there how yeah, and I would say that some people with very, very mild hearing loss, you know it like if you are an attorney and so your entire livelihood is based upon hearing every single detail, then even a mild loss would be something that may really warrant hearing aid in your life, whereas somebody who is home, maybe alone a lot more, maybe it’s something where it isn’t as critical, sure right now, but that’s something that the provider wants your you go through the hearing test, would actually be able to say okay, something that may feel mild to you may actually be moren’t a hearing aid. Now, oftentimes we hear people say I hear but I don’t understand. That’s the most common phrase that we hear from people, and so it helps you to get into this sort of fault sense of reality of saying, well, if I hear but don’t understand them, my hearing must not be that bad. And so it’s kind of a way of saying like, I can put it off. I can put it off because, well, I’m not missing much. I’m not only missing it here and there, but what we know is that it’s missing that little nuance that makes or breaks the word, you know, and it’s you misunderstand it or you answered incorrectly. And you with my own grandmother, I remember, wait for a while. You’ve walked in there and into our house and you say how are you doing the day and she’s say and shake her head yes every time, and it was just because she had no idea what you’re saying. So he was just bringing that back, you know, being able to really, you know, understand everything, communic kate easier, all of those things are really what matter. Yeah, and I think that to the other thing is is that, you know, just I found myself like I would go in a car with friends or whatever and if I’m I was sitting in the back seat or sitting you know where that where the engine noise was a little bit louder back there. I just to now if we’re in a restaurant there’s a group of people around the table, exactly I can relate to your grandmother. I was just I couldn’t hear across the table. There was so much of life that I was missing out. And yet, you know, I was on the well between mild and moderate hearing loss. So I’m not I’m not so I so severe that, you know, when you really look at it, it’s it’s so interesting this whole process because I missed out on so much. And so, you know, I sit there and say to people, why would you wait to miss out on life? You only have one life to live and if you’re not getting all the jewels and the gems and the you know, information and the education and the opportunities because you don’t here, it’s like that’s not a good full quality of life. And that that’s the point why I really wanted you to come back. So obviously it’s really easy and I want to talk about that is obviously it’s an investment and I so tell we can finance hearing AIDS, can’t we? Absolutely, and that’s you and that’s what we can do. You know, part of the discussion as well is figuring out what is it that that makes it makes sense for you on every level. Some people want to finance, some do not, some, you know, like I say, they’re they have anyone is just kind of asters. All sorts of you know, scenarios there, but that’s something that allows you to then say, okay, well, I can create a plan that I know works for me. Hmmm. And obviously there’s different types of health issues that can make it more prevalent. I know one you we’ve mentioned diabetes before, dementia, Alzheimer’s. Could you kind of go through a little bit briefly on that? We have about a minute. What are some of the the you know kind of red flags that could affect hearing? And actually I was speaking to aarp the other day and they that we were talking about the connection to diabetes with very specifically. But the interesting thing there is that hearing, when you have your hearing tested it can actually be this window to your overall health, because it really does, you know, have a correlation to this Alzheimer’s and dementia, you know, risk falling, you know, anything along the lines of even kidney disease, heart disease, appression, you know all these things. So there are a lot of other health factors that come into play that if you start seeing hearing loss coming in into someone’s sort of health perspective, there as well, it may be a sign that some other things are going on. To sure, sure and and you know, hope, we’re going to come back and we’re going to talk about the technology of where have we come with this whole hearing you know, world in in the meantime, how do we reach you? You can always go on to herecom. That’s literally it’s a name of the company, but also the name of our website. So herecom, Ata Arcom, and then also you can always give us a call and our numbers seven eighty six, five to zero, two four and fifty six. Well, hope, we’re excited that you’re here with us and we’re going to continue this conversation. Let’s talk a little bit about where have hearing aids come in the in this decade, because right now I’m blown away by the technology and ways in which they’re used and hope will be back with US reread after this answers for elders radio show with Suzanne Newman. Hopes you found this podcast useful in your journey of navigating senior care. Check out more podcasts like this to help you find qualified senior care experts and areas of financial, legal, health and wellness and living options. Learn about our radio show, receive promotional discounts and meet our experts by clicking on the banner to join the Senior Advocate Network at answers for elders RADIOCOM. Now there is one place to find the answers for elders