Welcome everyone to IHS's first ever half-day virtual event. I'm Kathleen Manillo, Executive Director at IHS. Whether you've been with us for the day or are just tuning in, we're so glad you could join us. You know, this spring has provided us with quite a bit of uncertainty, and IHS is committed to helping you navigate this new reality. We've heard from so many of you that with stay-at-home orders in place, the cancellation of face-to-face events, there's really a great need for professional development opportunities, and we want to answer that need for you. So I want to send a big thank you to our sponsor, Care Credit. Their support is allowing us to offer a free CE credit for each webinar you attend today. This is excellent. What a great partner we have working with us during this time. Thank you so much, Care Credit. I also want to share with you that IHS has created a COVID-19 resource webpage to provide you with pertinent information. Please visit IHSinfo.org to access this content. We're excited to get into our final webinar of the day, and to take us into that, I'll turn it over to Diana Chareveau, IHS Associate Director of Marketing. Diana? Thank you so much, Kathleen. I can't believe we've already gotten to our third webinar. This is a flown by today, and I hope everyone's enjoyed it so far. Thank you all for being here today and joining us. Our final topic is Communicating the Right Message to Patients. Audiology is changing, including the way that patients access their care. As the number of people living with untreated hearing loss continues to rise, hearing healthcare professionals have an opportunity to differentiate their practices. Speaking today, we have Dr. Keith Darrow, PhD, Harvard and MIT trained neuroscientist and clinical audiologist. He's a nationally recognized speaker, renowned for his ability to captivate his audiences, delivering many important approaches to thinking. Keith is one of the foremost pioneers in neuroscience, and has written and published a number one Amazon new release, and is a best-selling author in the field of hearing loss and cognitive decline. His research in auditory neurophysiology and patient care has been cited over 700 times. As a dementia prevention educator, certified by the American Brain Council, and a professor at Worcester State, students from across the country have traveled to his office in New England to visit the practice and learn from Dr. Darrow's vision to change lives, advance the profession and support his community. We're so excited to have Keith today as our presenter. And before we get started though, a few housekeeping items to keep in mind. Today's presentation is being recorded so that we can offer it on demand through the IHS website in the future. And as mentioned, this webinar is available for one free continuing education credit. To earn that credit, you'll have to take and pass a quiz online. You'll find a link to today's quiz on this slide. If you take it and pass with a 70% or higher, IHS will process and send you a certificate of completion. The links and instructions for this quiz are also found in a downloadable handout, which you can download and run in your handout section of the webinar dashboard. Feel free to access that at any time. For a copy of today's presentation, you can also find that in the handout section of your dashboard. You can also find links to the quiz, information about CE credit, and today's presentation on our website, ihsinfo.org. Simply click on the webinar banner on the homepage or choose webinars from the navigation menu. Tomorrow, you'll receive an email with a link to a survey on this webinar. This is a great way to help us create valuable content for you moving forward. Lastly, we want to mention that the opinions you hear today are those of the speaker and not representative of IHS's standpoints or opinions. Today, we're going to be covering hot button topics that inspire interest and engagement from prospects, evaluating your marketing effectiveness, the benefits of discussing services versus products, and the key benefits of automation. Afterwards, we'll move on to a Q&A session. If you have a question for Keith at any time, say entering your question in the question box on your dashboard, usually located to the right or top of your webinar screen. We'll take as many questions as we can in the time that we have. Finally, I'm going to turn it over to Keith who's going to take us away. Keith? Hi, everybody. So thank you so much to Diana, to Kathleen, to the entire IHS team who has done an amazing job responding to the need of its 3,000 plus members at responding to the need of our community to help continue to push forward hearing health care. So I am honored to be here. I've met many of you along my journey in hearing health care. I've spoke at many state conventions for IHS, and I'm honored to sort of be in front of so many of you today. You know, as I was working on this presentation, which has been approved for CE units for a while, I really thought, you know what? Things are pretty different. The messaging that we have to convey to patients is really changing with everything we're experiencing with COVID. And I believe it's super important that we communicate the right message, right? I believe in my heart. We are stronger together. We must speak the same language. And I want to define who we is. We is the person who answers your phone. We is the treatment coordinator in your practice. We is people at IHS. We is people at the American Academy of Audiology. We is the provider. We is the HIS, the AUD. We have to be together. The fractures in our field are holding us back. So it's hurting us. And we have to put us aside, and we have to focus on the patients. Every day we wake up, there are at least 42 million people in our country who need our help. We have one of the lowest treatment rates of any major medical condition. So I just want to clarify two things so that there's no misconceptions throughout this talk. Number one, I don't care what your credentials are. And I genuinely mean that. Again, any role you play in hearing health care, be it from billing to phones to treatment to owning a practice to being administration at IHS, it doesn't matter what your credentials are. We are in this together, and we have to start accepting each other. Number two, I have to acknowledge the topic that Alyssa talked about, which was the whole thing about the HIS and the VA. And I'm going to give you my honest opinion. It's absurd. There are 42 million people in need, and there are people in other organizations that are getting in the way. Like, all I can think about is a house is on fire, and the firefighters won't let anybody else help them because they wear this special jacket, right? Now, I really believe that we need to come together. I believe that we need perhaps a better standard of care for everybody that we all follow, and I hope I convey that message today as I focus on communicating the right message. And this, once again, is for all of us. So here's a little quote that I think is really important to start off with. I assume if you are here, and there are hundreds of you here, hundreds of you that are at home, maybe you're in your office. You know, I was always told if you speak to a large crowd, you know, if you want to get comfortable, picture everybody in pajamas and underwear. There's a good chance lots of you are home given COVID in pajamas or underwear in today's talk. But in all seriousness, if you're here, I believe you want change. I believe you want to be different, and I believe you want to be better. So this quote is really, really important. Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect. We have to stop swimming upstream. We have to stop business as usual. We have to stop showing up to work every day and saying it's okay that we only treat 17% of people with hearing loss. We have to stop allowing. I mean, in my opinion, there should be more hearing healthcare practices than there are Starbucks. There are that many people that need our services. And that's why things like over-the-counter and manufacturers going direct to consumer. Listen, I understand that side of it because are we getting in the way, right? You have to kind of ask yourself that question. Are we getting in the way? Are we just standing there as a majority saying this is okay to treat this few people? So I think it's time to pause and reflect. And I think COVID has given us that amazing opportunity to do this. So I wanna put forth, kind of like government right now is trying to put forth a plan so that we can put our boots back on, strap in and get things going. So I believe hearing healthcare, again, from all perspectives, from all sides, we need a plan. And so I have a five point plan to invigorate hearing healthcare and to help us communicate better with patients. So I'm gonna go through all five of them today, but here's the quick intro. Trust. We need to build trust with our consumer base, patient base. I understand that we have some different language, although I would argue that every patient with hearing loss is a patient regardless of your setting, but that may be a little taboo under certain organizations, but we have to build trust in our communities. We also have to educate our patients. We need to turn things around. We have to throw out the usual suspects and we have to educate our patients. We have to get rid of traditional marketing. We have to get rid of, I mean, traditional hearing aids that are really just amplifying and not providing that well-rounded support that the patient's brain needs. We have to provide great education to our patients so that they understand the value and the benefits of hearing healthcare. Authority. Authority is really important. We need to be able to stand strong, stand by our laurels and let people know that we are the authority in hearing healthcare. Again, I know I've said it five times, but every time I say we, I mean, every single one of us who wakes up and says, I'm gonna go to work today and help somebody hear better and help them live their best life possible. Four, affordability. We have to stop with the same old, same old, and this is the price range for hearing aids. We have to accept the fact that, I mean, pre-COVID, we had a problem with affordability because if I ask a provider, well, why did that patient reject treatment? Nine out of 10 times, they'll say pricing, right? And so do we actually align with our country's economics? And that was pre-COVID. What about post-COVID, okay? Finally, philanthropy. I believe there are people that truly, genuinely, no matter what we do, cannot afford hearing healthcare. And until government figures out how to help everybody who can't afford it, I believe that we can come together. Now, I know there are lots of philanthropic organizations out there, but let's be honest, it's not that easy to reach. They're not that easy to access. And so we have to develop systems that make it simple for everybody. Let's come together and share the core value that we help all who need hearing healthcare. So let me go into trust. Let me sort of dive into this one. Unfortunately, our patients live in a world of untrust. So think about pre-COVID-19, right? So pre-COVID-19, Equifax, right? Releasing everybody's data. Volkswagen told us that they were selling a eco-friendly car. Turns out they were mucking with the emissions and they were 10 times, or whatever the number is, worse for the environment than they ever should have been. Nursing home. Remember that nursing home in Florida, right? Where the power went out and I think about 15 older adults died because the power went out. I mean, that's not acceptable. It wasn't even during a like major storm. It was just a horrible, horrible situation. And now with post-COVID, I mean, we're almost in this, I feel like we're in this X-Files episode where trust no one, right? Where we have to kind of, we need to build trust. And so we have to sort of break down what breaks trust in audiology, right? What are the things that have worn down some of the trust in hearing healthcare over the years? Let's be honest with ourselves. There are a lot of outside influences. There's some pretty bad marketing, okay? There's some pretty bad marketing that equates getting a hearing aid with getting a free turkey, okay? Over the counter is coming into play. Managed care is just pushing widget, widget, widget for cheap prices, right? And listen, while we can't control some of that messaging, you can control you and we can come together as an entire field and we can convey a message of you can trust us, right? Think about the brands that we trust in our country, right? Think about, and I'm not talking hearing healthcare, I'm talking about in general, right? How do we elevate ourselves to the level of Disney where you always trust in that experience? Now, I'm sure of the hundreds of people on here, there may be some that have an affliction to Disney, but you get the point that they're certainly trusted in our communities, right? Capitol Grill, you want a great steak, right? You want a phone that will protect you and won't get a virus or a computer. You want something that you can return in, oh, I don't know, like five years from now, you buy it from Costco. Starbucks, you want a genuine cup of coffee that's the same no matter where you go. Listen, I'm not talking about different flavor palettes, but if you like Starbucks, you know wherever you go, it's gonna taste exactly the same whether you buy it in Seattle or you buy it somewhere in Ohio. Heinz, right? If you're gonna buy ketchup, you buy Heinz. Now, I don't eat ketchup, but I believe that to be true. Look at Doracell battery, right? How does Doracell market? They market that if your house is on fire and you don't have Doracell in your flashlight, you might burn to death, right? That's a pretty strong message that they convey out there that you trust them, the copper top, right? American Express, Allstate, you're in good hands. I mean, you wanna ship something, are you gonna go to the United States Postal Service or are you gonna go to FedEx? And when FedEx says it's gonna be there by 8 a.m. the next morning, it's gonna be there by 8 a.m. the next morning, right? Now, when it comes to hearing healthcare, right? And I know this could ruffle some feathers here, but when it comes to hearing healthcare, who do we trust? Who does the average person on the street trust, right? We think it's funny, but think about a patient that you've been treating for 10, 15, 20 years. If somebody stopped them on a street corner and said, hey, I see you have something in your ear, what is it? There's a good chance your patient might say Octocon. They might say Wittex or Pahonac, right? People don't know, they don't understand that there are brands associated with it. It's very confusing for patients, right? And so we've yet to build this trusted brand. And I'm not saying we should trust one brand, but let's trust the brand of hearing healthcare. So again, there are two names that are going to skyrocket in terms of trust in hearing healthcare. Again, I hope this doesn't upset you, but probably right there towards the top of the list is CVS. CVS shut down their audiology clinics, right? About, what was that? About six months, 12 months ago, right? Only with the intention of reopening in their new hub settings, and they're going to be selling over-the-counter hearing aids, right? CVS has trust, they have a heart in their logo. Millions and millions of people go into a CVS every day to get their trusted prescription from their trusted pharmacist. Let's not even talk about the data that they have, right? They know people who are dealing with dementia, diabetes, kidney disease, thyroid disease, all the things that are correlated with hearing loss, so they're also a marketing superpower. And the other one, the other trusted name in hearing healthcare, not well-known yet in hearing healthcare, but soon to be splattered everywhere is Bose. Listen, if you want a high-fidelity speaker, and I'm sure some of you will disagree with me, if you want a high-fidelity speaker, and you want an audio system you know is going to work and it's going to be awesome, and you're like, you know what? It's worth spending some extra money, you're probably going to go with Bose, right? They are known for these things. Combined, these two organizations have nearly $190 billion at their disposal to market and basically slap us around and kick us out of the way. We can't let that happen. We have to build trust in our good job, which is hearing healthcare. So building trust is really important, right? It's not something that just comes to you because you have a BCHIS or an AUD or a PhD. That's not what people trust. You have to earn trust by being transparent, by offering value, being affordable, and frankly, being the best you. What makes you different makes you better. And so I challenge you, as you go through these trust-building exercises and these conversations with your owners, with your team, with your community, talk to your community leaders, find out what can help you to be in what we call a category of one. With all of our coaching clients across the globe, that is always our goal. We help our clients become the leader in their market. So how do you do this, right? You must come to a message that builds trust. So for example, and my answers to this are gonna be different than yours. I ask you, what makes you different? Because honestly, what makes you different makes you better, right? What are your three points of differentiation? Now listen, if your initial reaction is to say, well, we hug tighter and we treat everybody like family. Listen, I love all those things. However, however, and I've been to some small towns in the United States where there are, there's a few thousand people. I think one town had 9,000 people and nine hearing aid shops, right? Like that's crazy. And so how do you differentiate? You can't just say that you're better than the other guy and you test better, you hug better. You ask yourself, what are the three things that are unique about you that nobody else can say, that nobody can argue? Your points of differentiation must be fact-based and you must know them, you must believe them. They must be in the DNA of your practice. And everybody has to know it, your team, your patients and everybody in your community. So I'm gonna go through this quickly because honestly what I'm suggesting is you go home to your team, you go back to your team and you figure out your points of differentiation and how do you market these in order to build trust and communicate the right message, right? For us, we're the highest rated hearing healthcare practice in the country. We have a treatment plan that was designed by a neuroscientist and our focus is on the medical treatment of hearing loss, tinnitus and cognitive deficits, right? So I'm not suggesting that these are perfect, right? But they're different. It's not always about being better. It's definitely about being different though because none of the other people in my community in hearing healthcare convey this message. So work on yours and I'd be happy to communicate with you if you wanna sort of dial in on how to develop these great three points of differentiation. But there's one thing that before I go on, if we're in hearing healthcare, I have to ask you because this kind of drives me nuts. How do you and your team define hearing loss? And this kind of drives me crazy because I always have this, I do a lot of secret shopping, at my own practices, we always send in secret shoppers. For all of my clients, we always send in secret shoppers. And one of the thing that drives me the most berserk is that we don't seem to have a unified definition of hearing loss. Now, if we were in a giant ballroom, I would actually stop for a second and I would say, hey, go ahead and write down your definition of hearing loss. And I can already predict that about 85% of you would probably give me a symptom-based definition or lifestyle-based definition. Things like social isolation, difficult to communicate with others, and I get it, those are all parts of hearing loss. But we need to come together. If we're gonna convey a message of trust in hearing healthcare, well, we better have a science healthcare-based answer to this question of how do you define hearing loss? And for me, it's simple. All you have to do is essentially open a textbook, look at one simple research paper, and you will learn that hearing loss is a progressive degenerative disorder. I don't care what letters you have after your name. This is a fact. So anybody on your team, from phones to providers, can say these seven words, right? Hearing loss is a progressive degenerative disorder. And the reason I stress that everybody needs to know this is because we have to speak the same language, right? We can't be the Tower of Babel where a patient comes to the tower and says, hey, what's the definition of hearing loss? And everybody starts answering the question differently. Imagine this scenario, right? And maybe you've been through it already. You send your mom in to get a hearing test at one practice on Monday, and then she goes to a different practice on Tuesday, the whole thing's recorded, and the entire experience is different. How does that build trust in our 42 million people who need our help, right? And what really drives me nuts is if my mom goes to an office on Monday and then goes back to the same office on Tuesday, but maybe sees a different provider and has an entirely different experience, different testing, different case history questions, different treatment plan, different recommendation. I mean, we have to come together. Now, I'm not suggesting that we turn into robots. We all deserve our autonomy when it comes to developing a treatment plan for our patient or helping our patients address their hearing needs. But we have to start from the same starting point. Hearing loss is a progressive degenerative disorder because with aging comes a reduction of the signals between the ear and the brain. That, my friend, is a fact, and there's no letters required before or after your name to be able to talk to a patient about this. So I would ask you, again, come together with your team. Come together in your community to develop a message of how you explain age-related hearing loss to your patients. How do you explain to them what's the cause, right? Do you, do we all speak the same language, right? And here's why I stress the we factor because I believe this in my bones because I'm overwhelmed in the data that tells me so. We have to communicate the right message on the phones. Listen, there's a simple question in hearing healthcare. I always ask this. When does the treatment plan begin? The answer is simple. It always begins on the phone, right? When a patient calls your practice, they have a problem. Maybe they don't know how to get to your office. Maybe they don't know your hours. Maybe they want to find out how to treat their progressive degenerative disorder, right? So your phones team needs to be nearly as educated as everybody else so that you can convey a strong message from beginning to end, right? If you look at the why, it's so important to start on the phones. Again, patients call because they have a problem. So how do we deal with this? We must listen and understand their problem. And the what is we have to solve the problem. One of the core values of my practices is we have to own the problem and solve it, period. And by the way, if you're wondering where I get this why, how, and what from, great book that I recommend is Start With Why by Simon Sinek. But all right, moving on to education. Education is so important to our patients and we need to provide that education. We must be a source of continuing education to everybody, to our patients, to our colleagues, to our referral sources, to our political leaders in our communities. We must always be getting out information. And if you look at what I have up here on the screen, it's everything from monthly newsletters to patients, monthly newsletters to referring physicians. I've written all these research reports, how to pick the best hearing healthcare provider, tinnitus, how hearing loss and dementia are correlated. Does your loved one really need help, right? All these things that people are looking for. And by the way, we've done our focus groups. We have the research to show that these are some of the hot button items. So here's what I wanna do for you, a simple little exercise where I review, what do you market, right? Like, is it education or is it promotion? Again, might ruffle some feathers here, right? Because do you offer free services or free education? Do you offer a book for your patient to read or a free screening? Do you offer a research report or a 30-day trial, right? So there's a lot of, there's a fine line there of what's education and what's promotion. And you have to be careful about what your message says about you. Now, if I can just sort of address the COVID thing, right? So this comes straight from the buyer's mouth. When you see a company advertising a down economy, well, number one, and I say this because I know a lot of people who are like, I can't market, I don't feel comfortable marketing about hearing healthcare during a COVID crisis. No, now is a great time because you will be top of mind when it comes to your patients making a purchase decision. They'll also feel like you're committed and you're in it for the long haul. If you disappear during an emergency, well, can they trust you in the future, right? And if you're wondering how to build up those reserves so you don't have to worry, right? Another great book, Profit First. Again, we can talk about it more offline, but I just wanna give you some examples here, right? I wanna show you education versus promotion. All right, look at how we placed our website, right? We're talking to people about hearing healthcare needs. We're talking about tinnitus. We're talking about dementia. We're talking about clarity. We're talking about increased risk of falls. We're talking about all the things that we know from all of our focus groups and data that this is what gets patients to interact and engage with you, which is incredibly different. Incredibly different from this website, okay, where I've blurred out the name because I don't want anybody getting in trouble, right? A hearing aid test drive. I mean, right there. You may or may not like it. You may or may not need it. What is the message that this is conveying to your patients? Personally, I'm not aware of test driving treatment for any other major medical condition. The third most common chronic condition affecting older adults in our country, right? And here's a couple of things that kind of really drive me crazy, where we talk about things like no commitment, no deposit. The choice is yours, right? Do we really want to convey a message to our patients that they don't have to commit? That committing to a treatment plan to address their hearing loss, tinnitus, and cognitive needs? Like, no, that's frankly not an option in my book because of everything we know about the unintended consequences of untreated hearing loss, right? Hearing health care providers must make a strong recommendation. You know, the analogy I always give is what would you think if your heart surgeon said to you, listen, I'm going to replace your heart valve, and we have a couple of choices here. We can either do a pump that will put in about 35% efficiency, one that's about 55% efficiency, or one that offers you maximum efficiency in blood flow. I mean, you'd look at your heart surgeon like he was crazy, right? People look to us for a strong recommendation based on their needs. So let's follow through with it, and let's not allow them to treat it as an option. So I've mentioned these, but these are the hot-button items. This is a little bit lower on my webpage, right? And this is all provided by Jimmy Marketing. They do an amazing job with our digital engagement. Treatment of hearing loss or addressing hearing loss can improve brain function. It can reduce the risk of dementia, restore hearing clarity. Invisible still comes up. Tinnitus, right? So these are the hot-button items that people want. They want education. I mean, look at how we're engaging people on social media. We're talking about COVID. We're out there outright talking about it, the links of COVID, how it deals with hearing loss, things like dementia. We're having these big, broad healthcare conversations. I found some posts talking about diabetes and hearing loss. I see people marketing books. I have a symposium you see up here that I did in late March that we had 750 seniors come. And this was right in the beginning of March where there was still a lot of questions about COVID, but 750 people came out just to learn about hearing healthcare at a symposium I did. This is education. This is promotion. Dine-in demos. Getting people to come in and try something and luring them in with some free wine or free turkeys, right? We need to communicate the right message when we develop a treatment plan for our patients. We have to ask ourselves, when we talk to patients, do we talk about education? Do we come from an angle of education or are we talking about promotion? Are we talking about the medical benefits of treatment that have been documented in peer-reviewed research? Or are we talking about the current sale or rebate program that we're offering, right? I mean, you know this. I don't need to tell you this, but every patient needs to know. And that's why we need to communicate the right message that treating hearing loss can increase quality of life. That addressing hearing loss has been shown to improve brain function, has been shown to reduce the ringing in the ears, may reduce the risk of developing dementia, may reduce the risk of falls. This is documented peer-reviewed data out there. This is not just coming from nowhere. There is science out there that shows the benefits and you never have to talk about price because people will find extreme value in this, right? So number three for the five-point plan is building authority, is elevating yourself up onto a pedestal so people look to you as the best, as the voice of knowledge when it comes to hearing healthcare, right? And I've done everything over the years and it's all work. I've had a radio show. I had a TV show. I've marketed in newspapers and I've been interviewed by almost all of them. So as you continue to get your name out there with community activists, with people in healthcare, it starts to elevate your profile and you develop this authority so that when you do put out a call for an educational event, like here's some pictures of events that I've done, right? This is authority marketing, showing people how you communicate with others. See, I build automation systems that allow me to automatically market and communicate with my patients. So all the messaging that's in my head, I can text my patients, I can send letters to their house and we do it all automated so that every time we put on an event, we get 750 people in a room. About 300, it always depends on the room size and the goal, right? Listen, communicating the right message when it comes to the treatment plan, right? You see, I'm walking you through like everything from marketing to being on the phones to directly talking to your patients. When you wanna communicate the right message about a plan to address your patient's hearing needs, you must come forth with a strong recommendation. You cannot offer overwhelming options. Do you want pink? Do you want white? Do you want big? Do you want small? 3,000, 7,000, it's overwhelming. And listen, paralysis by analysis is a real thing. You've probably done some of the reading, but there's a lot of psychology studies that tell us the more options that you offer, the less people are likely to take action. You know, it all started with a study about jam. Yes, I'm talking about jelly, right? Where they had this study done and sure, they looked at all these consumers, they were at a big fair, right? I know it seems kind of silly because we're talking about hearing healthcare, but they had this fair and they had a jam section and one of the vendors had this huge assortment, right? Now, 60% of customers went to the huge assortment. Only 40% went to the one that was a few down that was a small assortment. But guess what, guess what? The company that offered the large assortment, only 3% counted, one, two, three, 3% purchased from the vendor who had a large assortment. Guess how many purchased from the people who had a very small assortment? Very few jams to choose from. 30%, 30% of people bought. There's a tenfold increase in revenue when you offer a small assortment and offer a strong recommendation, whether it be jelly or it be for hearing healthcare, right? The presence of choice might be appealing, but in reality, people find more choice to be debilitating. So I have this fun little quote here, right? Maybe you've seen this one before. Ships don't sink because of the water around them. They sink because of the water within them. Now, what does this have to do with hearing healthcare? Well, watch, right? We've kind of twisted this into hearing healthcare. Practices don't sink because of the options around them. They sink because of the options within them. I want you to think about that. Heck, if you got a screenshot that's like, I want you to take that back to your group and I want you to sort of go through the JAM study. Think about this statement and how can you help reduce the confusion, the lack of trust, the lack of unity in the field of hearing healthcare within your own practice, right? So in terms of how we communicate with patients, we're very straightforward. And I'm gonna be honest with you. Again, this may ruffle some feathers, but one of our power phrases is when we verify your hearing loss and cognitive needs today, are you ready to begin treatment for $175 a month? And I'll get into that in a second. That's part of our subscription plan. But look at this messaging, right? We do it on the phone. We do it with our treatment coordinators. We do with our providers. We all have this conversation with our patient. We wanna break down barriers as early as possible, right? We want our patients to know that we're being transparent, that we're gonna offer them an extreme value and we are not going to lie to them or confuse them on the phone that there's 17 different options that only your provider can choose for you. Again, may ruffle some feathers, but when you have a unified treatment plan that helps address the needs of nearly every patient, not 100%, but nearly all of them, it becomes simple enough to say, this is what our treatment plan is. Are you ready? Is it something you're prepared for? Which brings me to affordability. This is part of my five point plan to help hearing healthcare come out of COVID stronger together and more successful than ever. Listen, we need to protect our patients from the rising cost of hearing healthcare. With subscription, we can actually do this, right? iPhone cost goes up, right? Used to be a few hundred bucks. Now it's $1,000, right? How do you get more people to access it? You make it a simple little subscription plan. Almost everything's become subscription. But before I even get there, I just wanna go through this, right? We need to talk about the pink elephant in the virtual room about why people don't treat their hearing loss. And this is very concerning, right? But we have to go through it. And again, I'm just being honest. Don't shoot the messenger. Let's have a real conversation and come together and fix this. Listen, there's a trust issue. I brought this up earlier, right? There's a history of bad products, right? 80s, 90s, early 2000s, how many people had their hearing aids in a draw or used them as a paperweight or felt like they got duped out of money, right? There's even some bad players, right? There's really no prevailing source of wisdom. And rather than us all come together, you have manufacturers fighting, you have IHS and AAA fighting, come on, 42 million people. Let's come together and build trust. Another reason why people don't treat their hearing loss, right? Are we offering value? Listen, humans purchase based on emotion. People want value for their money regardless of cost. There is no upper limit to cost if you provide extreme value. Listen, take Disney, for example. Did you know that over 90% of people spend over budget at Disney? And here's the real kicker. Over 50% of people who go to Disney double their budget. So you went telling yourself, I'm only gonna spend $1,000 and you're less spending too, right? More people spend money in Disney than they do in Vegas. Isn't that crazy? Why? Because humans purchase based on emotion and value. And third, let's be honest, our pricing kind of stinks. I am not, let me clarify. I am not suggesting we go on a race to the bottom. I'm not talking about lowering the overall cost. I'm talking about increasing access and affordability, right? We cannot not in good conscious say to somebody, treating your hearing loss or addressing your hearing needs is gonna cost $5,000. Pre-COVID, before the crisis, 46% of Americans could not cover an emergency of $400. 138 million people are underserved by traditional financing and nearly 70% of Americans have less than $1,000 in their savings. That's insanity to turn to somebody and say, I know all these facts about the US economy and I'm still gonna ask you for thousands and thousands of dollars. So yes, if you build a value, there is no price ceiling but you do have to align with human economics and you need to make things affordable. So listen, if you wanna increase healthcare access and you wanna reduce costs, my suggestion, the way my team is doing it and the way all of our clients is, we are providing subscription services because it helps the patient and it helps the practice. The average lifetime value on subscription is tremendous and I don't have time for that today. But look, Americans are getting used to subscription, right? All walks of life from every city, I'm not suggesting everybody likes subscription. I am not suggesting that. There will always be people who say, no, I wanna pay out of pocket. Okay, fine. But think about it. People in our country, they're subscribing to dog bone boxes for socks, for coffee, for wardrobe, for candy, for Netflix, for Apple, for office. I mean, nearly everything. There's even a place in Florida, I thought this was hysterical, where you could pay $60 a year and I think you get unlimited ambulance rides, right? Must be for those frequent flyers, right? And so why is this such a great plan? Because for a low cost of entry for our patients, our practices are getting paid every single time we treat a patient. Our practices are getting paid over $6,600. What's the ASP in our industry? $4,700. Listen, if you change nothing else of what we talked about, nothing, ignore everything I said today and you only changed the way you provided this financing, you probably have an extra couple of thousand dollars in your pocket every single time a patient left your office and decided to invest in their hearing healthcare, right? What would that mean to you? Finally, because I'm coming towards the end, part of my five point plan is philanthropic. To undertake philanthropic endeavors communicates a message of stability, commitment and a greater cause and listen, everybody latches onto this, right? The core value of my practices are simple. We help all, right? Do you have options for everybody without compromising treatment, right? Because our core value is to help all, we offer subscription, we let families help, right? We have an everyone approved program and yes, we have a nonprofit organization and there's lots of them out there but we built one with no red tape. I hate red tape, you probably figured that out by now, right? So we have a sound of life program that allows us to treat patients across the country. Again, maybe it's something you're interested in, this way you can become that leader in your community to say, yes, we help everybody. We have options for everybody without compromising care. So imagine being known for the practice that helps everybody, what that would mean for you. But there you have it. So thank you so much, please join the movement, join our universe, right? You can find me on Facebook, YouTube, we have a great channel that is growing leaps and bounds every day now that people are home. We have a 300% increase every few days. The Facebook, it's sort of going off like crazy and we have a hearing treatment academy that right now because of COVID is being offered for free. It's right there in the middle. All you do is go to joindrdarrow.com and you can become part of our hearing treatment academy. It's a great place to learn for you and your entire team and right now we're offering it free. So that's it, I'm done. Thank you. Thank you so much, Keith. So many of you have continued to stay on with us all day. So thank you so much. If you have a question for Keith, please feel free to enter that into the question box on your dashboard now. We've got a few minutes remaining and let's get into it. One of the questions that we have here is from Deanna and Deanna wants to know that most phone calls start with how much are your hearing aids? So in regards to your treatment plan, does your front office state that cost on the phone and kind of even more broader, how do you prepare your team for answering treatment plans on the phone? So how do we prepare our team? The treatment academy. It was built for internal purposes to build our team because we have practices across the country but we've had so much success with it. We're not selfish, we're trying to help everybody. So, and to answer your first question, absolutely. We have a patented domino system. Where we knock down the dominoes on the phone. For example, we ask things like, what do you know about treatment plans for hearing loss? I wanna know their biases. I wanna know, do they have friends who hate hearing aids, love hearing aids, or maybe they really don't know anything, which I find that sometimes hard to believe. I wanna know, do they understand the time commitment and the adaptation period? I wanna know, do they understand the costs that are involved? We have these conversations upfront. Our phone conversations can last anywhere from five minutes to 20 minutes because we're taking great notes and we're diving deep into the patient's why. Listen, every time a patient calls your practice, they have a strong why, right? They might've waited seven years. So let's have the conversation right now and let's best prepare the patient for what they're about to experience when they come to your practice. I love that. All about understanding the why and being transparent. That's great. Our next question here is from Dustin. Dustin is wondering, what's your best approach with a patient who says, why spend thousands of dollars on hearing aids when I can get an OTC aid for a fraction of the cost? And that's a great point, Dustin. And if we attempt, if we waste a single dollar on trying to fight the widget war, we will lose. Remember that number I said before, $190 billion. CVS and Bose combined their annual revenue. So we cannot compete when it comes to widget, widget, widget but we will knock the pants off of over-the-counter technology every day because of the service we provide. That's the message I'm trying to communicate to my patients, to my colleagues in the field. We provide a tremendous service, a life changing service. A widget is part of the treatment plan. It is not the end all be all. It requires my expertise and Dustin, it requires your expertise. Otherwise you just have this four, five, $600 widget hanging off the side of your head that you're fumbling around with on your phone and you're not receiving the quality of care that you deserve. Listen, I mean, I liken it to, people say I'm crazy. I mean, would you go to Costco for a colonoscopy? No, I don't think so, right? So this is serious healthcare. We have to convey that message first, which is not easy but if you say it enough, it breaks through to enough of the 42 million that keeps my practices humming along. Great question, Dustin. Thanks Keith. Hunter wants to know, what do you think of third-party programs? Do you accept or not? And what are your thoughts? This is being recorded, right? Although you did start the talk by saying my opinions don't reflect yours. So I understand. Listen, when it comes to managed care, it is my opinion and we have adopted this at our practices that managed care programs compromise care and because of that, and there's probably 30 people who just threw something at their screen because they're angry at me. And I don't mean that to be a total blanket statement but at our practices, the level of care we provide costs money. The amount of appointments, the amount of accessories, the amount of services, the amount of phone calls, clean and checks, all the testing we do, the diagnostic process has a very large value on it. And I will not compromise the value that we serve or that we provide and accept pennies for all of those services. So five years ago, I took the advice of a friend who's in a manufacturer. And he said, you know what, Keith, sign up and you can see them on Friday mornings and have your students see them. And I thought, okay, I guess it sounds like a good idea. Next thing you know, well, now they show up on Thursdays, now they show up on, and it started to overwhelm. And I finally, I wrote one email, I blind copied all of the managed care programs and I told them that I was out. It wasn't an easy thing to do, but I had to accept that I am worth a higher value than what they're willing to pay. And I had to stand by that core value. So thank you, Hunter. Thanks, Keith. Our next question is from Reggie. You started your talk with a powerful quote, when you find yourself on the side of majority, it's time to pause and reflect. Why do you feel so strongly about this? Because we're pedaling in the same direction and every time another market track survey comes out or another survey in hearing healthcare comes out, the number of patients we treat percentage-wise goes down. So we have to stop and rethink what we're doing. Why do you think Elizabeth Warren and other politicians, it doesn't matter what side, other politicians came together and said yes to over-the-counter? Because they were hit over the head with the number that 83% of people with hearing loss are not getting help, right? We're not helping enough. We're not helping enough. So other people are going to make decisions for us because maybe, just maybe, don't shoot the messenger, we might be getting in the way. Is it us that's causing such a low treatment number? I mean, I believe manufacturers got in this to build a widget, give it to us and allow us to help patients. Yet over the last 30 years, all the manufacturers have developed these huge teams of salespeople, internal, external, they build marketing, they do everything they can to help us. And I think they're kind of fed up. I'm making general statements, I understand that. And if you're on this and you're with the manufacturer, listen, there are great people that work for manufacturers. Many of them are my dear friends, but we have to try to sort of come together and help patients. And if we just keep doing the same thing, I think we might get pushed out of the way. That's my worry. Does that make sense? I hope it does. Thanks Keith. I wanna circle back over to the subscription plan. Christine wants to know what happens when a patient cancels the subscription? How does that work? So that's a great question. And I just, you know, time sake, I wasn't able to go into all of them, but with the Treatmentify subscription plan, the patient has 60 days. They have 60 days to warm up to the experience, to understand what they're going to experience. And they can warm up in four-year increments. So, you know, you may think a traditional subscription plan, which I get, you can cancel Netflix today and Netflix shuts it off, right? The way our program works is our patients understand it's a four-year treatment plan, and you are committed to this program, but you're not committed forever, right? You're not, I mean, you may move, your finances may change, in this, at least for the next few years, and see, there is no buyout option. So it's truly a subscription plan, which means the patient knows ahead of time that their hearing, tinnitus, and cognitive needs will change about every 36 to 48 months. And as we all know, technology will get significantly better, typically about every three to four years. So we built the program, or at least the program was built around those theories. And so patients do have a window wherein they can opt to get out in the beginning. But we, you know, a lot of people do 30 day, 45 day. We said 60 days, let's make sure the patient's comfortable with the program and their treatment. Thank you, that's really helpful. We've got just a few minutes left here. Our next question is from Sharon, and she wants to know if you can elaborate on the study that highlighted the increase in cognitive function when treating their hearing loss. Absolutely, absolutely. So the study that comes to mind is Desjardin in 2018, University of Texas, El Paso. It was a super simple study. It's the kind of thing you kind of kick yourself and you're like, wait, I could have done that. They, I'm gonna summarize it and I may get some details wrong, but essentially they took about 20 people. I think, you know, between the age of like 55 and 65, somewhere around there, pretty early stages of hearing loss, okay? And 20 people, and they committed to treatment. And then they had another 20 people who said no to treatment. And they did some cognitive tests where they had a psychologist came in, they ran this whole battery of tests. And it turns out that in two weeks, 14 days, the group who underwent treatment had increases in cognitive function. They had better memory recall, better selective attention and better processing speed. I mean, that's huge. And it was a hugely significant number compared to the other group of 20 or so that did not treat and there was no cognitive improvements. You know, a Nobel prize winner in neuroscience on the Charlie Rose show about eight or nine years ago, right when all the studies came out about dementia and hearing loss and the correlations. I mean, he told Charlie Rose and how many millions of Americans that this is like instant brain training. As soon as you start treating your hearing loss, you're basically, you're turning things on that have been lying dormant for not weeks or months, for years. And so it's great that we have the studies that are coming out now. And that's the one that really comes to the forefront. Awesome, thank you. This is gonna be the last question of the day. How do you get all your information to patients that you mentioned? And this comes from Jenna. So we have built extensive automation programs and we know that when a patient raises their hand on social media or from a marketing piece, we know what they're interested in. And so they get dropped into a funnel. So when somebody raises their hand because they're concerned about tinnitus or they're concerned about clarity or they're concerned about the correlations of dementia, we have set up all these touch points of information whether it be white paper research reports, landing pages. The book is our go-to, the book that I wrote a few years ago. I just, a buddy of mine said, you should probably write a book, get out the word to more people. And I was overwhelmed that A, the fact that it rose to become an Amazon bestseller in a few weeks. And number two, this is sort of, it has become our highest ROI producing marketing material of all time. I mean, it kicks the pants off of every other marketing we've ever done. And we hear it every day. I get another video testimonial every day about how reading the book prepared them for the appointment and it prepared them to change their life. And it covers everything from cost to dementia to why people don't trust us. I mean, it's got everything in there, easy read but that's how we set up. We have a distribution house that sort of, when you click a button and you enter your address on a Facebook landing page or something, like you'll automatically get shipped. And we do this all through automation. That's amazing. Thank you so much. And that is really all the time that we have for today. Thank you so much, Keith, for an excellent presentation and for all of you for joining us today on the webinar, Communicating the Right Message to Patients. If you'd like to get in touch with Keith, you can do so by emailing him at keith.darrow at gmail.com. And as a reminder, whether you've been with us all day or just tuning in, to receive your continuing education credit for free through IHS, be sure to take and pass the quiz online by following the URL that you'll see here on your screen. Or you can access it from the downloadable handout in the handout section of the dashboard. You'll also find links to the quiz, CE credit submissions, and today's presentation on our website, ihsinfo.org. Click on the webinar banner on the homepage or choose webinars from the navigation menu. Lastly, keep an eye out for the feedback survey that you're going to receive tomorrow. We ask that you take a few minutes to answer some brief questions about the quality of all of our presentations today. And we really appreciate all of your feedback in advance for that. Now I'm gonna turn it over to Kathleen. Thank you, Diana. What a great day. I can't believe we're already done with these presentations. It was excellent. Thank you so much, Keith, for such impactful information. And certainly a special thank you goes out to our sponsor, Care Credit. Without them, today's conferencing just would not be possible. Be sure to visit them by clicking on the link here in the presentation or visiting carecredit.com forward slash sound strategies. Most importantly, though, I want to thank all of you for joining us today. It is IHS' mission to serve you, the hearing healthcare professional, and we hope we've done so today. Whether you attended one, two, or all three of the webinars, we hope you enjoyed spending your afternoon with us and learned something new and relevant for your business. If you're already an IHS member, thank you for your dedication to the profession and the society. If you aren't a member yet, I invite you to join today. We look forward to connecting with you in the future. Thank you for all you do to help others and take care.

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