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Subject : Re: Actual Audiologists Salary and Income posted by glucas on Sun Nov 2, 2008 1:52 pm |
| hi, >The Savia ART is a good aid, so perhaps you won't get too >much benefit from upgrading ... unless you urgently need >Bluetooth. Thanks for this. Very useful info. >Also, you paid quite a good price for the ARTS .. some >dispensers would have charged 2 or 3 times that amount. Yes. I did pay a good price. The point I was making that in order to keep up with technology developments, I would have to buy hearing aids every 2 years, and even with the good price I got, I would be unable to afford repeat purchases. >Don't worry about the Audeo: it's simply a repackaged ART. Thanks for the advice. >As for the 'sales volume' point: a new platform is a new >chip ... so a lot of money has been spent between >aid 'generations'. Aids don't sell in huge quantities ... but >these sales will be needed to fund that work. ok >As for the 'downloadable upgrade' point: each chip has a >certain amount of program memory. This is probably 95% >full already ... with maybe a tiny bit of free space to allow >bug fixes to be downloaded. So where are any new features >going to be downloaded into? Then change the architecture and make it open platform. >Yes, aids ARE too expensive ... but even if they were $1 >each you would still need to pay for the fitting etc .. which >you do NOT need to do with an iPod. Sure. But a fitting doesn't cost £2000 pounds. I don't mind paying up to £200 for a fitting provided the instrument cost can be halved or quartered. >The fitting service etc is STILL going to cost a few $100 >minimum. >Hopefully the $8000 pair of hearing aids will fade away ... >but I doubt we will ever reach $20 for a pair of fitted aids! Not asking for $20 dollar aids. I think the industry is missing a trick. As a hearing aid consumer who needs hearing aids and wants to keep up with the latest technology, I am willing to apportion a certain amount of my budget, every year, to my well being, which is essential to my career and family life. I would like to see a lifelong programme whereby I would put a certain amount in, and receive up to the minute updates in technology. The industry would get my continuous funding, instead of having to rely on new customers alone. This type of approach is not there, and in my view the industry is losing money because it does not lock the consumer into this type of deal. If Phonak, or Widex, or any other vendor was to come to me with a lease scheme that cost say, $1500 dollars a year, and in return I would receive new hearing aids every year, I would be delighted. If they did this, they would actually be getting more money from me. As it is, I'm giving them less than this because I feel I'm being ripped off and can't afford it. |
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