Where have all the physical plant people gone?

This week I did not get to see anybody. I observed one lady come in to pick up her hearing aids and one man came in to have his father's hearing aid cleaned. Since the week was uneventful, I decided to find an article that discussed some of the business aspect into hearing aid dispensing. I thought I might find some good advertising tips to incorporate into our clinic. Dugloss (1996) took a survey of audiologists in which number and type of hearing aid sales, price of hearing aids, type of consumers, generation of leads, etc. were included. Dugloss found, "public education/ awareness and trustworthy advertising were the major obstacles to expanding hearing instrument sales." HMOs were also counted as an obstacle to patients seeking help from an audiologist. Audiologists in a clinical setting were referred most of their patients from an ENT. In a private practice, most were repeat or current patients. Somehow, hearing instrument salespeople had the most repeat sales at 38.7 percent, followed by private practice audiologists with 33.2 percent. I could not find a more current article of this survey. However, I hope the numbers have changed since the popularity of the new BTE styles. Even if the article is outdated, it still gives an overview of competition in the dispensing of hearing instruments.

Dugloss, M. L. (1996). Dispensers seek new public image, survey finds. Hearing Instruments.

http://web.ebscohost.com.www.libproxy.wvu.edu/ehost/detail?vid=1&hid=15&sid=c5134a8f-0eaa-479a-aabc-9015243bd3a2%40sessionmgr7