okay here's what happened

SkullChick

SkullChick

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Well I didn't get confirmation today because she used quick mold as temporary mold for hearing test with best aided condition but as soon she pulled mold out she was like *gasp* your ear canal is so small, hope I can fit tube through this. So she tried and it ripped it completely so she had to redo and put in box to mail to company so that mean I have to wait EVEN longer before getting her decision ugh also she seem airheaded (meaning dumb) and she is pretty pushy about not getting ci and use oticon instead I'm like "no I'm not interested I want ci so focus on that please and just do hearing test as soon as we get mold to see if I am candidate ok?" so that's it for while but she told me to go ahead schedule for surgery and if she decided to say no after we get hearing test then she'll cancel the surgery and if she said yes it'll happen so I don't know, we'll see I'm little worried if she gonna rip me off like if I heard tiny blip and she decided to go for hearing aid instead of ci you know what I mean? Hm just really hope I get it cuz I don't want hear horrible distorted sound and loud static buzzing noise *sigh*
 
Sorry to hear what happened to you today.

Er...is this person competent?!? I might consider checking if somebody with better bedside manners working with you.
 
I'm sorry about what you went through. Why can't they make a temp? I hope it works out.
 
Hmmmm. I'd certainly want a hearing test first before trialling hearing aids, after all, how can she set the Oticon according to your audiogram unless she knows the characteristics of your loss? If the hearing test showed a very profound loss for example, then she would be wasting your money making you get a mold.

It's pretty standard by the way for audiologists to want you to try out hearing aids before going the CI route. I think if she had good reasons for believing that you could do just as well with hearing aids as with a CI then it's good that she is not pushing you towards a CI. But since she hasn't done the hearing test yet, she needs to get her facts right before she makes any sort of recommendation like that for you.

When you trial the hearing aid, insist on doing sentence recognition tests because that is one of the tests they use to assess candidacy for a CI. Do you otherwise have good lipreading skills?
 
WHAT?! What type of audiologist does not have a makeshift hearing aid mold to hook up a hearing aid to so they can conduct tests? I agree with R2D2, I had to go through about 5 different types of tests in order to get approval. When they had to do the speech discrimination tests on me, they use a makeshift mold for my left ear since I have not used it in 15 years just as I have had other audiologist do in the past.

For the audiologist to say, "Ok, go ahead and schedule the surgery and then when I'm finally able to do the testing on you I will make my final determination." It doesn't exactly work that way. The surgeon won't say you are a candidate without the hearing tests. The insurance won't approve it the surgery without the surgeon letter of approval with proof of testing.

I have to ask you this, most surgeons have their own audiologists that specialize in cochlear implants. Is this audiologist a cochlear implant audiologist or the run of the mill hearing aid dispenser? If it is a hearing aid dispenser audiologist, then you might be wasting your time.
 
I would seriously consider working with another audiologist. If you don't trust them I would not want to work with them. You will have to try hearing aids and they should be programmed according to your most recent audiogram. If the audiogram is older than 6 months another should be done.
By all means make sure you get sentence recognition testing.
 
hang in there dudette.

I had many months of delay and cancel of surgery due to my insurance.. and i finally got one .. it takes me many months of rollercoaster. but now i'm glad everythings over.

it takes time and paitence.
 
I agree with all of you!

I worked with my local audiologist first. She has been mine for the last 15 years. She tested me and then sent my test to Vanderbilt and they scheduled testing. I worked with for 3 hours on testing - hearing, voice, lipreading, word and others. My right ears mold was not fitted well so she put something else in my ear for the test. Also she checked my hearing aids and did a "tune up." After that test I had a CT scan. After the CT scan I met with the surgery. He had the results of all and checked out my balance, ears and my wanting implants. I saw him and 5 other doctors. I left there knowing that CI was approved by them. For the next year I had to working with insurance on approval. So it took me a year to get it all approved. My doctor felt that bilateral was my best option but was ready to do one and then go back to do the other later. I'm glad I waited.

Don't give up!!!
 
vallee said:
I'm sorry about what you went through. Why can't they make a temp? I hope it works out.
Click to expand...

That what I meant the pink mold she made was temp but she ripped it trying put tube in, my ear canal is very small almost same width as the tubing she told me she don't have smaller size for temp mold
 
R2D2 said:
Hmmmm. I'd certainly want a hearing test first before trialling hearing aids, after all, how can she set the Oticon according to your audiogram unless she knows the characteristics of your loss? If the hearing test showed a very profound loss for example, then she would be wasting your money making you get a mold.

It's pretty standard by the way for audiologists to want you to try out hearing aids before going the CI route. I think if she had good reasons for believing that you could do just as well with hearing aids as with a CI then it's good that she is not pushing you towards a CI. But since she hasn't done the hearing test yet, she needs to get her facts right before she makes any sort of recommendation like that for you.

When you trial the hearing aid, insist on doing sentence recognition tests because that is one of the tests they use to assess candidacy for a CI. Do you otherwise have good lipreading skills?
Click to expand...

she have my audiogram from 5 months ago by other audiologist who offer me ci when we found out I lost at least 45 decibel of hearing (you know how its different in each frequency so 45 is minimum) so she used that to program oticon and my hearing in good ear is profound plus I want ci on my worse ear (110 decibel loss) and she didn't want to test that one it doesn't makes senses
 
contradica said:
WHAT?! What type of audiologist does not have a makeshift hearing aid mold to hook up a hearing aid to so they can conduct tests? I agree with R2D2, I had to go through about 5 different types of tests in order to get approval. When they had to do the speech discrimination tests on me, they use a makeshift mold for my left ear since I have not used it in 15 years just as I have had other audiologist do in the past.

For the audiologist to say, "Ok, go ahead and schedule the surgery and then when I'm finally able to do the testing on you I will make my final determination." It doesn't exactly work that way. The surgeon won't say you are a candidate without the hearing tests. The insurance won't approve it the surgery without the surgeon letter of approval with proof of testing.

I have to ask you this, most surgeons have their own audiologists that specialize in cochlear implants. Is this audiologist a cochlear implant audiologist or the run of the mill hearing aid dispenser? If it is a hearing aid dispenser audiologist, then you might be wasting your time.
Click to expand...

she is audiologist that work with my surgeon and she's only one so if I want go other audiologist I'll have to go one in baltimore, maryland that's like 3 hours from my house and my surgeon I have right now is only 15 min away. She want to do test on my good ear but I want get ci on my worse ear she doesn't want do test on that ear I don't see the point of that can't I just get hearing aid on good ear and get ci on other one sheesh
 
The issue is that the FDA criteria for initial implant candidacy require the tests be performed under bilateral "best aided conditions" Even though your bad ear is at 110, in order to get insurance approval for your implant, they need to perform the speech discrimination tests with a functioning power aid on the side they are not implanting.

Sorry for your frustration, hang in there.

Sheri

SkullChick said:
she is audiologist that work with my surgeon and she's only one so if I want go other audiologist I'll have to go one in baltimore, maryland that's like 3 hours from my house and my surgeon I have right now is only 15 min away. She want to do test on my good ear but I want get ci on my worse ear she doesn't want do test on that ear I don't see the point of that can't I just get hearing aid on good ear and get ci on other one sheesh
Click to expand...
 
I am sorry to hear that... bu don't give up .. good luck :)
 
LTHFAdvocate said:
The issue is that the FDA criteria for initial implant candidacy require the tests be performed under bilateral "best aided conditions" Even though your bad ear is at 110, in order to get insurance approval for your implant, they need to perform the speech discrimination tests with a functioning power aid on the side they are not implanting.

Sorry for your frustration, hang in there.

Sheri
Click to expand...

Yeah that's what I thought too. Insurance companies don't like to part with their money too easily so it does have to be shown that you at least made an effort with hearing aids even if you have a large loss.

I remember when I was being tested the first time around for speech discrimination, my audiologist made me put on my hearing aid in the ear even though it was painful with tinnitus that seemed to bite me angrily. It was an absolute joke - I got 0% and I couldn't even finish the test because it was so uncomfortable.
 
Ok I emailed my surgeon's assisstant about it she told me its ok to do that because she will call and talk to my insurance company for approval right after she pick date and if they didn't approve before the surgery date just delay it and also my hearing test depends on my surgery too so guess its ok as long they get what is needed before surgery happens and she also will forward my email about why hearing aid on only right side not both so we'll see what they said.
I wonder what's do they really meant by benefit from hearing aid? Like just simply hear loud enough to hear evironment sound or just the speech discrimination test and sentence recognization if scored whatever is correct?
 
They'd want to know how well you can discriminate speech. I was able to hear a lot of environmental sounds but I got 0 on speech discrimination.
 
deafskeptic said:
They'd want to know how well you can discriminate speech. I was able to hear a lot of environmental sounds but I got 0 on speech discrimination.
Click to expand...

Yeah that's right. On the ear that I just had implanted, I got 20% speech discrimination without visual cues with my hearing aid. On my first ear, I got 0% with the hearing aid and now have 80-90% with the CI.

I believe most centres look for something less than in the range of 40% - 60% speech discrimination. If you are getting good speech discrimination with hearing aids without visual cues, you will likely get turned down by insurance companies.
 
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