Should I Get Hearing Aids from my Optician?
It’s a good question. After all, you have probably been visiting your local independent opticians for some time. You know the owner. You trust their judgment and their expertise. They provide excellent service, so choosing them for your hearing needs is natural. Right?
If only life were that simple! Let’s examine the history of the relationship between optician services, hearing care, and audiology services to provide you with more information, which is always a good thing!
A slight detour – The Big Chains
Boots and Specsavers were two of the first high-street optical providers to see the opportunity to provide their ‘eye’ customers with ‘hearing products’.
As with most businesses, opportunities for growth are constantly being explored. Both providers have been offering hearing tests and hearing aids for many years. In fact, Specsavers are involved in some NHS audiology provision up and down the country.
High-street NHS audiology providers
All NHS audiology services should be separate and distinct from a company’s private services. This means that if company A provides both NHS and private audiology services, it must not try to coax its NHS patients into buying hearing aids when they attend an NHS appointment.
However, a recent RNID report raised some concerns that some audiology providers who offer both NHS and private services were ‘upselling’ products to NHS clients. In other words, NHS patients attending an NHS audiology appointment were offered private hearing aids that would require payment. This ‘upselling’ technique was not allowed but was reported by 1 in 4 NHS patients surveyed.
What do the Big Chains offer?
Big chains offer what big chains offer: a high volume of customers, high turnover of staff, often junior, less experienced staff, but a recognised brand and name, which for some people is enough.
Independent Opticians and Hearing Care
So, back to the question we started with. Should I go to my local optician for my hearing care? It depends, and I will try to break down what you should be looking for.
Who will provide the hearing care?
Is it a national chain with a relationship with the opticians or a local audiologist invested in the community? From a business perspective, opticians are a great source of revenue for hearing care. They have loyal customers; they may be skewed to the older generation, and they are often seen as community focused. However, if a big national chain of hearing care (as many are), then what was unique about the independent nature of the opticians is lost! In effect, the hearing care is a national chain, dressed up as a local, independent hearing care provider.
This is not always the case, and there are some great examples of local audiologists working with local opticians to provide excellent services. However, as a customer, it is often hard to know who will provide their hearing care.
Why does it matter who provides my hearing care?
You might wonder if it really matters who provides the hearing care. Well, I will try to outline some thoughts on this.
If your local optician uses a national chain of audiologists, they are unlikely to be physically present more than once a week or every two weeks. If you need help with your hearing aids, let’s say they break or don’t work, you may wait more than a week to see your audiologist.
Again, if your ears are blocked with earwax, you will probably have to wait to get them cleaned. Of interest, I recently received a phone call from a customer who had used their local optician to buy hearing aids. Their ears were blocked with wax, and they were told this service was no longer offered!
Your audiologist may well change every year or so. One of the benefits of local, independent eye or ear care, is seeing the same health professional. However, when opticians use national chains for their hearing care, staff often leave, and continuity of care is lost.
Hearing care requires skill, expertise, and experience, and the benefits of hearing aids in part depend on the skill of the audiologist you see. I have seen clients who have spent thousands of pounds on hearing aids from high-street providers and are still struggling to hear. With careful assessment and adjustment of their hearing aids, they nearly always leave me hearing better than when they walked in. High-street providers and those operating in many opticians often have new graduates working for them. This reduces their costs but limits the amount of expertise available. There are many experienced audiologists who do work for the national hearing care providers but there are also many newly qualified audiologists, who are still acquiring skill and experience.
Hearing Aid Sales
Did you know that all high-street hearing aid providers set targets for their audiologists to meet regarding hearing aid sales? Again, when you think of your local, independent optician, you probably don’t think of high-pressure sales techniques. But, as we have discussed, your audiologist working at your opticians is probably working for a big, national chain. The care and expertise that you receive for your eye care does not necessarily apply to hearing care from the same place.
Trusted, local, independent hearing care
Here at ‘The Hearing Space’ in North Leeds, we are first and foremost part of the local community. We are open Monday to Saturday and can see people quickly, whether they need a hearing test, earwax removal, or help with their hearing aids.
With over 30 years of experience in Audiology and living locally, as Clinical Director, I treat everyone I see with care and expertise. We never use sales techniques and only ever recommend what we feel is necessary for our clients. As a genuinely independent clinic, we can offer any hearing aid from any manufacturer that we think is best suited to your needs.
Of course, we are biased and think you should choose us for your hearing care. But think carefully when deciding who provides your hearing care. If you genuinely value independent advice and want a community-based service, then perhaps going to your opticians is not the best idea! At a minimum, we suggest asking questions about who will provide your care, their experience, how often they will be around, and whether they provide earwax removal services.