I’m frustrated. Once again, yesterday, I met a new patient who said she wished she’d known about us sooner. She’d been overcharged and under served at a large hearing aid chain store not far from our office. She reported how the front desk person was rude to her, made her reschedule four times, and blamed her for the scheduling mishaps. Ultimately, she had been charged double what her hearing aids were worth, and still could not hear well after repeatedly going back. Lastly, every time she returned, there was a different “Hearing Instrument Specialist”. Unfortunately, she is not the first person to come to us from this exact same place and with a very similar experience.
Why did she go to the other place? Because they had an enormous marketing budget with large ads in the Chicago Tribune, as well as large direct mail pieces that tout about their really small and really cheaply priced hearing aids -which no one actually is offered once they are seen.
Why am I writing this? Because we need your help to prevent this sort of thing from happening to your friends and family. Hearing loss is something people don’t tend to discuss, so they tend to just go to whoever they see in the newspaper. Please start the conversation and refer them to us. Even for a second opinion.
We don’t have an enormous marketing budget. WHY? Because we want to keep our hearing aid prices down, so they are more affordable for you.
At least once a day, if not several times a day, I am fixing other peoples’ work. Many new patients bring in hearing aids that they were told were of no use to them, and in spite of the fact that they are only 2 years old, they are told they need to buy new ones. (Only for me to find out in the prescription programming software that they were under fit and their latest hearing test results were never applied.)
Unfortunately, there will always be stories like this, but you to help us minimize them.
If you know of someone who is considering seeing someone about their hearing, suggest that they stop by our office. As you know, we not only know what we are doing, but we also try our best to keep costs down while improving your hearing as much as possible.
As Doctors of Audiology, we didn’t go to school to make money. We go above and beyond the ensure the correct diagnosis by using Best Practices in evaluating and treating the hearing loss. We test in a sound booth with both quiet and noisy speech tests. When we fit hearing aids, we use Real Ear Measurement to ensure that the aids are fit for the person and no assumptions about the size and shape of their ear canals are made.
As of October 2017, we unbundled our pricing and we, therefore, helped you save a bundle. We simply want everyone to be able to afford hearing!
Offering recommendations to your friends and family, or writing your story on a review on Google, Yelp, or Facebook, are easy ways to help us get the word out about our honest-to-goodness little practice. 630-930-1025
Thank you! I hope you have a great day!
Warm regards,
Dr. Dawn Heiman
