Time to Read: 8 minutes
Are all hearing aid trials the same? What's the difference between a free trial versus a paid trial with a return period? Emma discusses the limitations of in-clinic only trials and free trials compared to the trial period included when you purchase hearing aids.
Watch the video or read the transcript below:
Hi there, welcome back to Value Hearing's YouTube channel.
I'm Emma. I'm a clinical audiologist.
Today, I'm going to talk to you about the difference between a free trial of hearing aids and a paid return-for-credit period on hearing aids.
It's a bit of a mouthful, but basically what you'll notice when you are looking for your first set of hearing aids, and you're perhaps looking around on the Internet researching the different clinics that are available to you in your local area, you will see a large number of clinics offering free trials.
Some of them mean a free trial on the day when you see them in the clinic to give you an idea of how the hearing aids look and feel, and how they might sound for you.
Others are meaning that you go out for a week or two with a demonstration model so that you can go out and get a little bit of a taster of what it would sound like to have your own prescribed hearing aids.
Others will, most of them really, here in Australia, offer a real hearing aid that's been fully prescribed for you at the level of technology that the audiologist has recommended for you, and that you have paid for and been sent out into the field with it properly prescribed.
Usually they'll give you a month to two months of return period so in that time, once you acclimatize to the new technology, if you feel it's not meeting your needs, or the audiologist feels it's not meeting your needs, then you can either have a full return for credit - so get all your money back.
Some clinics will return all your money, maybe aside from a little fee which covers the audiologist's time.
At Value Hearing we don't do that, because we assume if you're doing a two-month trial that you are serious about your hearing loss.
Free Trials. What’s the catch?
Now the catch with all of this is however, that a lot of clinics tend to offer a free hearing aid trial and it seems to be that they lead you to believe that it's the real hearing aid - so the full prescription, the actual hearing aid that you would be purchasing. And then they send you out.
But it seems to be happening more and more with these free trials is that you're sent out for the week, or two weeks, you haven't paid anything and they're not actually properly prescribed.
Or more often, they are actually a higher level of technology than what you're going to pay for. So, they may say to you, ‘yes, yes, you are going to get an advanced (or a basic hearing aid)’ but then when they give you the demonstration model they're actually setting you up with the premium level.
Now, we are not saying that that is done out of any sort of malevolence, it's just that most of the time the hearing aid manufacturers supply demonstration models that are only of a premium level.
It has become a bit of a trend in the last few years, thankfully, that a lot of them will allow us to change the level of technology inside the demonstration model, but that is certainly not the case for all.
And it's certainly not the case for all audiologists when they're doing demonstration models, that they will actually change that level of technology, so be careful.
So, what is better than a “free” trial?
The thing that we offer here at Value Hearing, that we feel works, is we recommend that people come in and have a full assessment, including a speech-in-noise test. We discuss all of your options and then together between you and your audiologist, you choose which technology is most likely to suit you.
Then we order it in for you, or sometimes we can fit it on the day, but we order it in the colour that you want, in the style that you want, at the level of technology that we recommend and feel would be best for you.
We spend a good amount of time at the beginning setting it up really well and then for two months after that we support you through several appointments as you acclimatise to that technology.
Then through that two months if we, or you, decide based on the goals that we set together at the very beginning, that the hearing aids are not achieving those goals, then we will sit down together and decide what to do - be it that you take all your money back and you no longer continue your journey with hearing aids, or we look at the other technology available in the market for you.
Maybe a different brand, a different style, different type of hearing aid, maybe a more sophisticated version, maybe the same hearing aid but with extra accessories added to achieve your goals.
We feel from experience that is the best way to get a good outcome for you. We do find that offering free trials, where you take a hearing aid for a week or a two week period and it's a demonstration model then it's a little bit of a taster, but you rarely get the time of the audiologist to fully understand the technology.
You certainly do not get the time to acclimatise to the technology and with us, with Value Hearing, we'll make sure if we can, that the demonstration model is the right level but we can't always offer that because we don't have access to every level of technology with demonstration models.
Get the real deal
So our advice would always be have a paid trial and get the real hearing aid, the real deal.
If you take out a demo model, you may find that you end up with a hearing aid that, at the end of it all, wasn't as good as the demo model, or perhaps the demonstration actually didn't do the hearing aids justice and you decided to walk away thinking that they were not the right device for you.
There's risks there as well. That's our two cents, or my two cents you're hearing on free trials versus real trial of hearing aids.
