Yes. All right. I'm just making sure that they can't see. If you can put your slideshow into presentation format and then make it so it's the full screen. Do I need to press this on my phone, the number? No, just wait. Okay. And is the phone quality pretty good? Yes. Awesome. Awesome, awesome. Thank you very much. Welcome, everyone, to the webinar on Transforming a Hearing Aid Return into a Satisfied Patient Experience. We're so glad you could be here today to learn more about transforming a hearing aid return into a satisfied patient experience. Your moderators for today are Esther Waldman, Membership Specialist, and me, Elizabeth Smith, Membership Coordinator. Our expert presenter today is David Frazier II. David is a hearing health practitioner in the greater Chicago area with nearly 10 years of experience. David works with elusive hearing and lectures for the Speech-Language Pathology Assistant Program with South Suburban College. David's work in the hearing health care field also extends to participating in the development of human auditory brain and speech perception research with University of Illinois Neuro Research Laboratory. In his free time, David serves on the board of Illinois Hearing Society as a secretary slash treasurer and was appointed to the board of directors for the Illinois Deaf and Hard of Hearing Commission. David has a Bachelor of Science degree from Illinois State University in audiology. In addition, David is a certified occupational hearing conservationist and has received advanced training to perform auditory brain stem response tests for newborns. We're very excited to have David as our presenter today, but before we get started, just a few housekeeping items. Please note that we are recording today's presentation so that we may offer it on demand through the IHS website in the future. This webinar is available for one continuing education credit through the International Hearing Society. We've uploaded the CE quiz to the handout section of the webinar dashboard, and you may download it at any time. You can also find the quiz and more info about receiving continuing education credit at our website, ihsinfo.org. Click on the webinar banner on the homepage or choose webinars from the navigation menu. You will find this CE quiz along with information on how to submit your quiz to IHS for credit. If you'd like a copy of the slideshow from today's presentation, you can download it from the handout section of the webinar dashboard, or you can access it from the webinar page on the IHS website. Feel free to download the slides now. Tomorrow, you will be receiving an email with a link to a survey on this webinar. It is brief, and your feedback will help us create valuable content for you moving forward. Today, we will be covering the following topics. Learn how to sharpen skills needed to foster open lines of communication with patients. Learn to educate patients on an individual level to ensure successful appointments. Obtain tools, tips, and strategies to transform returns into a positive experience. Learn to be aggressive and boldly address issues throughout the patient's hearing journey during a return appointment. At the end, we'll move on to a Q&A session. You can send us a question for David at any time by entering your question in the question box on your webinar dashboard, usually located to the right or top of your webinar screen. We'll take as many questions as we can in the time we have available. Now I'm going to turn it over to David, who will guide you through today's presentation. David? Hi. Good morning, everyone. I want to first thank everyone for taking the time out of their busy schedules to join this webinar, and of course, a special thank you to IHS and Esther and Elizabeth for having me this morning. So thank you, guys. And without further ado, we're going to jump right into our agenda today due to time constraints. And I've already had my Starbucks coffee and, ironically, a disgruntled patient this morning, so I am ready to go. And so I wanted to just start by saying I have one main objective for the webinar today, and that is to educate, equip, and empower hearing care professionals with the proper mindset and tools to keep patients happily wearing their hearing aids. And how are we going to achieve that one main objective? By the agenda. We're going to start by laying a solid foundation, going to some individualizing patient appointments with AR, oral rehabilitation sprinkled into appointments. We'll talk about tools and tips, and most importantly, we're going to figure out how to change our mindset to be more aggressive from patients from start to finish. So I want to start with a scenario that unfortunately may be all too familiar with clinicians. As we're sitting at our desk preparing for our next patient, our front office assistant announces that your recent hearing aid fitting is here to return them. Lots of thoughts go. So what I want to help us do is to transform our mindset from the picture to the left going to the right. We want to transform our mindset from chaos, stress, and fishing for words, and to become more calm, collected clinicians with a clear game plan for this type of situation. So where do we begin? Where to start? We're going to start by exploring how to lay a solid foundation with our case history. And like most things, first impressions are the most lasting, according to Proverbs. And another cool thing is that you never get a second chance to make a great first impression. So we're going to start with laying a solid initial rapport with our patient. And oftentimes, hearing aid returns are saved before the sale even happens, and it all begins with, hello, hola, como estas? It all begins with hello when we create our initial rapport. We have to begin to create a transparent atmosphere to allow comfort and open lines of communication. We want to establish our expertise and professionalism while balancing and showing that they're value, and we value their input about their own hearing journey. I often tell patients, yes, I am the specialist, however, you're the wearer, and your input is invaluable. I may know theoretically what settings should be doing or filtering should be doing, but unless you tell me your actual perception and experience, I'm going to leave the settings and things just how they are. So before we start with initial rapport, I want to lay out something called an upfront contract or UFC. An upfront contract essentially creates a game plan for yourself and with the patient. It helps get organized and allows the specialist to have a goal in mind regarding what type of questions to ask, the depth of the questions you're going to ask, and the type of probing that's needed for that exact reason for their visit. I often say if you don't ask the right questions initially, it is tough to hold patients accountable for keeping their hearing aids. And not necessarily you want to use the upfront contracts to hold it against them if they do want to return hearing aids, but it's very important to have upfront contracts to use it as tools of arsenal if a return is possible. So I wanted to actually lay out some of the actual dialogue that I go through with my patients when establishing something called an upfront contract. I typically like to say whenever I go to the grocery store or to a very important meeting, I always create a list of things to remember what I intended to get so I can help stay on the course. So when you were driving to this appointment this morning, Mrs. Smith, what were some of the things you were planning to get accomplished by the end of our appointment? What are your goals for today? And if I could be Superman, which my alter ego says I am, how can I help you? And what would I have to do to help you hear better? Continue with our upfront contract. I always say once we figure out their initial questions, I say I also have an agenda as well. And I need to find out if there is a hearing loss, the severity of the hearing loss. I need to probe and find out a little bit about your lifestyle and create the best plan of action for you to hear better by the end of our appointment. I go into detail and say that I am a researcher and in order to individualize my services to you, I will need to ask some personal questions and understand what acoustic environments need assistance. Is this going to be okay, Mrs. Smith? And is it okay if I take notes during this appointment? I go on to say it may come a point in our meeting where I discover that I cannot help you. Is this going to be okay if I say no, I can't help you? This is really good to show patients that we're not always there to quote unquote sell hearing aids, but we're here to help with the best outcome for their hearing needs. And sometimes by telling a patient up front that I may not be able to help you, it allows them to let their guard down to say, hey, this person is not trying to sell me anything. They're trying to help improve my hearing quality. I want to help you be, I want you to be comfortable enough and be honest with me and withholding information only hurts you. And if I can't help you, I want you to say, no, I can't help, as opposed to what we all dislike is that I'll think it over at the end of the appointment. Is this going to be okay? I like to go in to already take down and tear down some of those questions and stigmas and myths about hearing aids. And I say hearing aids can be very scary because all of the myths and social stigmas that exist. Do you have any fears about hearing aids before we continue? It's been very important to have those objections, those fears, those questions before we get to the end of it. Address them initially and be aggressive starting from the beginning and be bold. Moving on from the up front contract with our initial rapport, we want to make sure that we note the reasons that the patients are even present at the appointment. We want to list either mentally or physically list all of their challenges, the issues, and their communication breakdown. We call them third parties or loved ones. We want to make sure we engage with the loved ones at the appointment and make a list of additional issues from that outside perspective. I always start with the patients and I want the patients to tell me what's going on first and then I go to the third party or their loved ones. I always want to start with the patient because it's their concerns about their hearing and then we want to get substance information from their loved ones that's going to be there with them. We want to make sure we have a, we make an effort to fully understand what the problem is and how we can fix it and state it to the patient. I'm a bachelor and I go out to eat often and one of the things that's very important to me is when a waiter or server repeats my order back. Statistically, it's proven that if a server repeats the order back, most likely they're going to get it right and you're going to have a great experience at that establishment. We want to do the same thing. When patients come to us, they come to us with a problem or an issue and we want to make sure we understand what that problem is, how we can fix it, but again, fully repeat that back to the patient for clarity and to show them that we fully understand what their issues are and how we're going to attempt to solve it. What does that look like, restating that to the patient? Great question. Some of those conversations sound like this. So you're saying that your wife keeps nagging you to get a test and you want to prove her wrong. So you're saying, Mrs. Smith, that you can't understand people talking at your job and you want to see why. So you're saying that your hearing aid broke and you need a replacement. No, so you're saying that you've known for some time that your hearing has changed and you need hearing aids. And so you're saying, Mrs. Smith, that you were tested last week and that you want to compare hearing aid prices. When we figure out what the patient is really trying to articulate and we restate it back to them, we both, patients, third parties, and clinicians understand, okay, this is what the problem is. And with the first one, we'll pick on that one. So this patient says that the wife, the husband is saying the wife nags to get a hearing test and you want to prove her wrong. By establishing that, we see that we need to probe deeply to see if this patient feels that they have a hearing problem. Is this patient fully in that river in Africa denial or not? This patient initially, according to what they're saying, it's the wife, it's the wife's problem, not the patient. So if that was the conversation that's having and that's the what and the how, I would make sure I would not move forward with this patient until we establish some type of ownership from that patient and then we move forward. When we figure out what and how, we have to clearly tackle all objections head on right away and dismantle any of those things before we move on in the process. Too often, we figure out that there is the issues like this and we just move right over it and we minimize it and we need to capitalize what they're saying, tackle those issues, and then move on. And we'll just choose one more and then we'll move on with another example that I just gave. Let's say we know the patient is saying that their hearing aid broke and that they need a new replacement. By saying that, oftentimes as clinicians, we want to rave about the latest and greatest technology and features, but sometimes if a patient's hearing aid broke, if it's not broken, don't fix it. Sometimes they need the same type of hearing aid, just one that's not broken. So we want to clearly understand what they're trying to articulate and make sure we don't veer off the course and we help patients give them what they need, not what we believe they need. And by figuring out what and how and repeating that back to the patient, we're going to be successful. And then also, with initial rapport or creating that very solid foundation, we need to make sure we do not forget to ask about work environments, hobbies, interests, Mrs. Smith, explain what a typical day is like for you, saying that you are retired. And what are some of your living environments? These questions are invaluable. Unfortunately, in our Western civilization, we often create our work with who we are. And understanding the type of work that a person does, we can figure out psychologically a little bit about who the person is and how we can best help them. We want to create a solid initial foundation and asking these questions, figuring out what exactly is going on and how to address it, we're going to be successful. You can't build a great building without a solid foundation. And now we're going to do a little bit of switching gears and we're going to talk about how to individualize each patient appointment. So I did have the pleasure of doing an oral rehabilitation presentation and it was over 90 minutes with IHS. So this section is literally going to be just a snippet or a quick overview of the importance of oral rehabilitation or the importance of individualizing each patient appointment and each patient experience in the clinic. Each patient deserves a customized and individualized appointment. What works for patient A does not work for patient B. We want to make sure that we have an appropriate timeframe blocked for the patient and the time of day that's most fitting for the patient. I work in a more urban environment and during the weekend, on the weekends, often patients, they don't want to come with the traffic. So I want to schedule them when traffic is lighter or maybe in the morning when they're more alert and vigilant. So we want to make sure we set time aside if patients need more time to work on other things. Blocking time in our schedule that's appropriate and the time of day all goes into individualizing appointments. We want to keep the patient's needs and the patient's progression pace in mind, not our own agenda. I have a patient that has suffered from a TBI and he only can focus for about 10 or 15 minutes and he will boldly say, Frazier, I'm done. I have to keep that in mind even if I want to press on and plow on. I have to stop based upon the patient's needs. So one of my favorite quotes about oral rehabilitation comes from Dr. Ty Murray and it's to alleviate the difficulties related to hearing loss and minimize its consequences. And oral rehabilitation can be sprinkled into every type of appointment from as simple as phone placement or preferential seating in restaurants or communication strategies, look at me before we start talking, get my attention, slow down your rate of speech. All of these small things can be sprinkled into every patient experience and every patient appointment. Oral rehabilitation will decrease hearing aid returns. As clinicians, that's what we want. That's why we're all on the call today, is to hone and sharpen those skills and give us more tools and arsenals to decrease hearing aid returns. By incorporating oral rehabilitation into all type of patient experiences, it will increase patient satisfaction, increase patient usability of the hearing aid, and increase acceptance of the hearing aid and the hearing loss. That's important. We want them to accept if there is a hearing loss. We want to help decrease and diminish fears and questions about their hearing aid and hearing loss. And by utilizing oral rehabilitation, it helps address the individual needs, the individual concerns, and it also really helps the patient get better acclimated to their loss in amplification. Oral rehabilitation is the evolution of, the evolution of oral rehabilitation is based on the notion that it's an ongoing process. It does not stop when our 90 days end. Unfortunately, it's continuous. And the communication is a behavior which relies on the integration of many types of information and of the individual as a total person with multifaceted hearing needs. Oral rehabilitation is ongoing past our trial period and you have to look at the patient, again like we talked about, from their work environments, their hobbies, their interests, their typical day, and their lifestyle, their living environment. We want to take all of that into account to create a holistic hearing care experience for patients. Something that's very important is establishing realistic expectations. Realistic expectations begins with the explanation of the audiogram. I always go over the audiogram before we put the patient in the booth. We want to let the patients know what the test is going to consist of, generally how long it's going to take, what the results will look like, what does normal look like, what does the hearing loss look like, where do you feel your hearing loss will be on this chart, do you feel that you will be in this normal box, do you feel you'll be outside of the normal box. You want to explain the audiogram and go from there. Establishing realistic expectations establish troops beginning with explanations of what hearing aids can actually do versus their myths. Establishing realistic expectations sets our patients up for very successful journey as opposed to a diluted journey. Yes, we're going to restore your hearing back to when you were 19. Those are all lies. Yes, you're going to be able to hear crickets and all these other things. It depends on the person's hearing and audiological results. It depends on the patient's word rec scores and all these other things takes into account. And that's what we use to help them set up for a successful hearing journey. And then the level of assertiveness that we're going to use when we establish realistic expectations is determined by the sensitivity of the individual patient. While we're establishing rapport, we need to gauge psychologically to see not really how aggressive and strong, but you know how assertive we have to be with the patient. I often say once we find out that there's a hearing loss, we have to be direct. Yes, there is a hearing loss and yes, you need hearing aids to help with that hearing loss. But again, the assertiveness is going to be determined by the individual patient. I often create realistic expectations by giving my favorite a coffee analogy. I love my coffee straight black. As it was established, I do perception and hearing speech perception research. I often say, Mrs. Smith, hearing aids are similar to drinking coffee. Coffee is an acquired taste. I drink my coffee straight black. However, you may hate coffee and your husband may need too much cream or sugar for my taste. It doesn't mean that we're wrong. It's that we all have different taste preferences. And very similarly, we all have different hearing preferences. What's comfortable on the right ear is not comfortable on the left ear and we need to figure out just how you like your coffee or how you like your hearing. And then I also like to again establish them some truths up front depending on their hearing results. Yes, Mr. Smith, when you do go to the urinal, it may sound like Niagara Falls in there and that's totally normal and we just need to make some adjustments for you. The last thing that I'll quickly go over is something that I provide for all of my patients which is called a welcome packet. All patients have a welcome packet and with this welcome packet, I give it, it includes all of the things that the patients need. It's going to have their program settings, what their program settings do, how to function and use those toggle switches or a volume controls. It's going to have several things on the inside including their audiological results, their contracts, ways to get in touch with me. It's going to have supplemental information as far as something called a communication journal or I call it a hearing aid journal. I want you to tell me what your experiences are in the world. I want you to tell me that, Frazier, when I was in the car and I turned my turn signal on, it was super loud. Or Frazier, when the dishwasher came on, I almost jumped out of my skin. I want to know what your experiences are so we can tackle them. If you don't tell me, if I don't know it's broken, I can't fix it. And this is very successful too to use this communication journal with my patient. When they come in for their follow-up appointments, we look at whatever they wrote down and it's not always issues or concerns but sometimes positive things. Frazier, I heard my granddaughter and I haven't heard her in years. Or Frazier, I heard the ministers preaching and I wept when I heard the message for the first time. So this communication journal is twofold to show areas of improvement as well as to show how well the hearing aid has helped. Incorporating this welcome packet is very important to establishing individualized appointments and establishing realistic expectations. Okay, we're going to take a quick breather and we're going to switch gears and we're going to talk about transformation tips. Transformation tips. We need some helpful tips, some strategies to help us transform our mindset when patients come in unhappy and disgruntled. We're going to figure out how to turn those frowns upside down. Okay, patient comes in for a hearing aid return. Frazier, I know how this goes. I just want to return them and go. I don't want to talk about it. Okay, they're just not working out for me or I don't think I need them. The hearing aids are just not working or I'll just wait until my hearing gets worse. As clinicians, unfortunately, we've probably heard all of these very often and what do we do? Do we stay a little stressed out and are we a little puzzled and perplexed initially? What do we say to these patients? And often in my environment, I work with lucid hearing inside a band club. Sometimes patients come in with the hearing aids in the bag and we know what that means. So what do we do? Any good clinician should have the patient sit down and explain their decision to return them. Often patients, when they get hearing aids, they'll say, so Frazier, when we're signing the contract, I can return them, no questions asked? And I say, no, you can return them, but there will be questions asked. And I say that very firmly initially. I explain to the patient that the dialogue, when we have them sit down, is useful for myself not to allow this to happen for future patients and it's helpful for patients to hopefully talk through their issues. Ultimately, patients want to be heard. They want to know that they're not alone with their experience. Yes, Mr. Smith, this feedback thing does occur and it could be annoying. However, I can easily address that. Yes, Mr. Smith, the occlusion effect is real. I did plug your ears up because they were whistling. Other patients experience this and to overcome that, there's several things I can do. You've got it. We want to minimize their issues and often I say, yes, I want to agree with them. That could be annoying and show the patients that they are heard. They're not alone and often in that welcome packet I have, your hearing may be a little sharp, a little crisp, a little tinny, and a little loud, but it should not be overwhelming. I want to let patients know it should be a little different or they would need them. Yes, they're experiencing some of these issues, but it's normal. You should hear your voice a little different based upon your audiological results or whatever the issues are. Patients ultimately want to be heard and by having them sit down and talk through their issues, often that's all it takes is, pun intended, an ear to hear their concerns. So all of the questions when we have a patient come in for an RFC or to return a hearing aid, all those questions should be aimed to find the true reason for their return and I often ask if it's unearthed, is this about money? Is this about anxiety with the hearing aid? Are you having issues with operating the hearing aid? What questions arose after chatting with loved ones about that? What's going on? And again, the level of assertiveness, how directly we ask these questions is going to be determined by the individual patient sensitivity that we gained with the initial report and throughout their hearing aid journey and experience over the coming days and weeks with us. When a patient comes in to return a hearing aid, patients come to us as hearing care professionals and clinicians with an issue, with a problem or a concern and they're looking to us for guidance and help. By allowing our patients to simply drop off those hearing aids, we are not helping them with their issues and which causes them to further sweep the issue under the rug and prolong strain on the brain and auditory deprivation and atrophy to occur. I simply ask, Mr. or Mrs. Jones, if we can't figure out what's going on and they are very stubborn with returning hearing aids, I just want to return them, they're just not working out, then this is how my mindset goes. This is transforming our mindsets and giving us a clear guidance, a clear map of how we're going to tackle these dischronic patients. We can't unearth the true reason for returns, I always start here. Let's start with the basics. Mr. Jones, do you feel you have a hearing loss? Let's start there. Let's go over the audiological results and establish and have them take ownership at least starting with the hearing loss. We can't establish ownership with the hearing loss, that's a big problem. Then I move on, we start very basic and then we're going to move very detailed to some of the questions that I ask. Well, why did you take them if you didn't need them, if you feel that you didn't need them? Or I may ask, why did you take them if they wouldn't benefit you? Those questions seem very minimal, but they're very direct, they're very open-ended. Again, we don't want to ask a lot of closed type of questions in this type of setting and we know even with our initial report establishing a solid case history, you would want to be very open-ended. What's going on? I often ask, were you hearing well before you left with the hearing aids as we verified? Most of us are going to do some type of hearing aid verification, even if it's just as simple as saying, do you hear okay? Can you tell that they're working for you? We want to go back to the basics. Were you hearing well before you left with them? Then also we have to be strong and ask, well, what happened from the time you received your hearing aids until now? Transforming our own mindset, we want to utilize our initial case history questions and those notes that we talked about and they're going to be imperative with hearing aid return appointment. You want to use those questions. Well, you said you have problems with the TV. Are you hearing better with the TV? Well, you said you wanted to take them to hear better at work. Are you hearing better at work? Well, you said that you want to, we want to use those questions again, not negatively, but to really show the patients, no, these are the reasons why you took them. Are you benefiting from them? Why did you take them if you didn't have these issues? What's going on? And like I said before about that good waiter or a good server, we want to restate the reasons why they initially obtained the hearing aid and we want to restate the reasons why they even initially sat in the booth before they even took the hearing aids. What was the original reason? What was the original thing on that grocery list that even prompted you to come here? Not along the reason why you took them. Why did you even come? We want to go back to the basics, go back to the case history and really figure out and delve in deeper what's going on. What changed? What happened? Something had to change and it's up to us to figure out what changed from when they first took them to now when they're there to try to return them. Okay, we should have a better idea of how we're going to shift our mindsets as clinicians to being more prepared and to have a game plan and to go from being less chaos and stressed and to being prepared with our our questions and lines. And now we're going to talk about how to be e-aggressive. I wanted to use that title because it's a very very famous cheer. All of my sisters are cheerleaders and unfortunately I've heard that cheer and I chant it to myself often. We want to be aggressive. Often as clinicians we're taught in our environment sometimes that the patient or the customer is always right. Yeah to some degree but it's up to us when they come with a problem to help solve the problem and by being timid and not being bold enough to ask those questions we're not helping anyone. So how do we become aggressive? I wanted to list a few definitions of being aggressive or a little bit of forceful. It's disposed to or characterized by bold or confident statements and behavior. Again our behavior and what we say are important and I'll talk about that in just one moment. Being aggressive is a readiness to engage in daring or difficult activity. A hearing aid return I definitely think qualifies as a difficult conversation to have but we have to transform our mindsets to be ready to engage with those tough questions and in tough situations with those patients. And being aggressive is a quality or a state of mind of being forceful. You have to have a state of mind of being aggressive. We have to go into the booth, get our aggression cap on, then go talk to that patient. Being aggressive we have to keep in mind that hey Frazier they're already here to return the hearing aid so what do you really have to lose? Even though I say that in my mind I'm of course I'm not going to be rude or anything but you do have to say what do you have to lose? They're already here to return them so we might as well ask those tough questions and we might as well be audacious while doing so. Aggressiveness is determined by the precedence and relationship again that's established with the patients from the initial case history. Again being aggressive and all of these things starts with hello. It starts before the patient even takes the hearing aid. By not asking those tough questions, yeah we may spare the patient's feelings and emotions but what are we really doing for the patient's hearing health? This is one of my favorite analogies. I use it for my students in voice and diction all the time. The German Shepherd and Chihuahua analogy. Imagine there's a huge German Shepherd running towards you but then when that German Shepherd gets close the bark sounds like a Chihuahua. Initially you were fearful and then when the Chihuahua sound came out you started laughing. The facade or what the person's statements are didn't really equate with how they were saying it. So yeah even if we're going to tackle and say some of these questions and be very forceful if our delivery is timid it does no good. We have to say things and back it up with our demeanor. We have to back it up with again how we say it. Paralinguistics are again not only what we say but how we say it. We have to say what we truly feel is the reason for their return if it's unsaid by the patient and we have to address the issue that presents that with the patient being there or they're going to really return the hearing aid. By talking with our patients through the uncertainty we remove the cloud of fear concerning their hearing aid and their hearing needs. The more comfortable patients are about their hearing aids their success in their satisfaction with the hearing aids will be high. Okay so I want to go back to the initial scenario that I gave you guys. All right now we're sitting at our desk and we're preparing for our next patient. Our front office assistant announces that okay your recent hearing aid fitting is here to return them. If we look at these little figures at the bottom, they've changed. Now we see a very confident guy. Our confidence level meter is off the charts and as we can see, their negativity, the worry, the fear, the stress, the chaos is diminished. When that patient comes in and they're a little unhappy and they have a frown and they're a little disgruntled, there's no need to fear because Superman has provided us with some tips, strategies, and transformative mindset tips when that patient comes in. We know that the importance of laying a solid foundation is imperative to help and inhibit patients from returning no hearing aids. We know that the significance of an individualized patient appointment and individualized patient needs are important. We know that strategies and tips to transform our mindset so patients again, not only leave with hearing aids, but they're happy hearing aid wearers. And we know that to be aggressive, it starts with the initial hello. And it goes from start to finish with our patient. And we want to incorporate all of these things in all of our appointments. So again, ultimately, when patients are upset with their hearing, we want to emphasize that patients are not alone and that we hear what they're saying, that their experience with hearing aids, their experience with some of these frustrations are heard by us and we're going to do everything possible to hold their hand and not have a liaise or fair approach with them. Some patients may need a little bit more guiding than others, but we want to ultimately let the patients know that, hey, I'm the professional. I'm confident. I'm bold that, yeah, you may be uncomfortable. You may be unsatisfied with your hearing aids now when you walked in, but when you leave with these hearing aids, you as a patient are going to be empowered and you're going to feel that, yes, this guy, this young lady, this clinician, this hearing health care professional understood what my issues are. They addressed them and they're going to be happy with their hearing experience. So I thank you guys for joining this call today, this webinar. Hopefully that you have been educated, you have felt equipped, and you're empowered to tackle those tough conversations when those patients are unhappy with their hearing aids. Thank you so much for joining. Have an amazing day. Thank you, David. We're so excited that 136 of your fellow colleagues have joined us today on the webinar. We do have some time for questions. If you have a question for David, please enter it in the question box on your webinar dashboard. Our first question is from Carisha. She would like to ask, what if the patient wants to return the hearing aids because their family are the ones that are pushing the return based on the fact that they have unrealistic expectations regarding the hearing aids? That's a great question. What I normally like to do is I would have the patient bring their loved ones in. I would really emphasize to the patient, hey, there's a hearing problem and you need help. Are your loved ones really aware that if you return the hearing aid that your cognition can go down, that your hearing is going to be impaired? And then I like to say, bring your loved ones in. Let me educate them as well. If they can't come in, I'll call them. I'll send them an email. I'll let them know about your ideological results to help you hear better. But I often like to say, if the patient's third parties or loved ones are not present, bring them in so we can talk about why they even took hearing aids and why they need them. Great question. Wonderful. David, we have another question here from Janine who asks, is there a particular app or program that you recommend for oral rehab? There's not a specific AR program or app that I recommend. Why? Because the whole purpose of AR is to be individualized. So the individual needs from the patient will prompt me to seek certain avenues for their help. But no, there's no cookie cutter AR program that works for all patients. It just is based upon what they need from oral rehabilitation. Wonderful. David, we have another question here from Dana. She asks, when it's priced, how do you address this while still being sensitive about it? Was the question about price? Correct. When a patient returns to hearing aids because of price, how do you address that with the individual while still being sensitive? Well, oftentimes, I want to talk about pricing and things like that initially when we talk about, are there any questions that you have? Is it because of the pricing? Why are you here? Are you shopping around for hearing aids? So hopefully, if it is because of price, I would have already talked about it or the issue would have come up before the return. Unfortunately, if they're already there and it is because of price, we're going to do some stats work. We're going to look at statistics of how hearing aids cost and why they actually took the hearing aids and why the hearing aids cost that amount. Unfortunately, sometimes, if it does come down to cost, it is what it is based upon a patient's budget. But I, as a clinician, I only give patients what they need. I'm not going to give them the latest and greatest if it's not what they need. When I choose a hearing aid for a patient, it's twofold. It's based upon their audiological results as well as their activity level. So if a patient did get a very expensive hearing aid, I will let them know and reinforce, well, your hearing aid cost X amount because this is what you needed to do. You needed to do this and this and this. If you did want to go to a lesser one, you would miss out on some of those things. So if it is because of price, hopefully, we talked about pricing issues and that objection before they took them. But if not, I'm still going to be aggressive and bold and tackle specifically what the issue is about the pricing. And I will reinforce why they took the hearing aids and why they cost an amount based upon, again, their audiological results and or their individual needs based upon the hearing aid. Wonderful. Thank you, David. We have another question here from Harmony who asked, how do you address a patient who returns and insists that they are not benefiting from them? Great question. That's when I go back to some of those things. Did you, Mrs. S, did you hear well before you left with them? Did you notice a difference as we verified? And we'll start there. And if they did not notice a difference before they left, then why did you take the hearing aid with you? Then once we figure out that, then I will say, let's make adjustments. Let's make it a noticeable difference. You do need the hearing aids based upon this, your audiologic results and this. If you're not noticing a benefit, let's make that happen. That's why we have a trial period to make sure that we work out these bumps along your hearing aid journey before they're permanently yours. So that's OK. I'm here to help you. I'm here to improve those things. And it's not a big deal. I'm here to show you the benefit of these hearing aids. Great. David, we have another question here from Mandy, who says she loves the webinar, excuse me, the Welcome Package, but says there are so many different types and styles. How do you differentiate this in the package itself? So as far as the Welcome Package, the contents in the inside are pretty much the same. What really changes is the front page, which has the programming options. So with the programming options, again, some patients, the toggle switch or programs are turned off because they can't handle it or they don't need it, while others may have four settings plus volume controls and all these other things. So based upon what the patient's actual hearing aids are, that's what I give for their settings. And if it is a custom hearing aid versus the RICs or VTEs, I just change the front cover of what their actual programming options are. But pretty much, that's why if you see it's blank and I write what the settings will be if they have the settings turned on at all. Wonderful. Thank you, David. We have another question here from Daniel. Daniel asks, any recommendations in the way of verbiage for customers dealing with occlusion? Yes. What I normally do for all of my patients, I have so many stories and little parables. Before they put the hearing aids on for the very first time, we always do before and after. I do ask patients to tell me their name and the city where they live. I do that two-fold. One, so I can remember who my new patient is and their name, and then also so they can hear their voice before and after. Especially in my environment, sometimes acoustically it's a little loud, and we want to know before and after how are they hearing. And so by saying their name and their city where they live or perhaps even their address, we're going to know if they're going to have occlusion before they take them home. But if they still have occlusion, I'm going to reinforce why they have it. That's totally normal. I can do some things in the settings, and or you need to do homework. You need to talk out loud, sing out loud, read out loud as much as you can so that your brain says, oh, this is how my voice is when it's corrected with the hearing aids. So again, I want to agree with the patient, yes, you do have occlusion because of your hearing needs. Yes, like we did before when you said your name before and after. Yes, I did plug you up. It may sound like a towel over your head or you're in a barrel or a tunnel, but I did that. And if we want to lessen it, I can lessen it with software, or you can do some homework and allow your brain to get acclimated to this occlusion effect. So if it is because of occlusion, I really would try to say, yeah, I agree with you. That is, it can be annoying. However, I can easily solve that. I'm the specialist. I can take care of that. That's a no-brainer. Great. Thank you, David. We have another question here from Jonathan, who asks, have you ever had anyone return hearing aids due to frequent ear infections, which are unrelated to the hearing aids? Actually, I have. I had a patient say that the hearing aid, since she got the hearing aid, then she had a lot of more ear infections. She never had ear infections before. Sometimes hearing aid returns are unavoidable for some patients because if they have ear infections and they have to leave them out of their ears more than they have them in their ears, then it can be very frustrating. So again, I always like to say, unfortunately, even once that hearing, that ear infection clears up, you'll still have a hearing loss, so you'll still need the hearing aid. So I do like to show that, yes, like you said, it is somewhat unrelated, but it is definitely related because if you can't wear them and they cost a lot of money, why would you take them? But I like to emphasize, okay, I do understand today for the last week or so, or maybe the next week, maybe month, you may have an ear infection, but once that ear infection clears, the hearing loss will still be present and you'll still need your hearing aids. So that's not a reason to let them off the hook, but we do want to still validate that is a valid reason. However, once the infection clears, you'll still need hearing aids, so you might as well keep them. Great. Thank you, David. Additionally, we have a question here from Iris who asks, can you speak about what you do to gain rapport? And if you have had an appointment, who returns, even though you had established a great rapport and why? Hi, Iris. Thanks for asking that great question. I always really try to establish a great rapport. Often, since I'm somewhat seasoned as a clinician, I don't write things down and I like to go off the beaten path when I ask questions about personal things, about working environments or what do you like to do in your off time? So I really focus most of my time on getting a good rapport with patients, on establishing one-on-one basis, like I know the patient, I know their loved ones, I know what they like to do. And sometimes, even though I've established a great rapport with patients, they may even have my personal email or, again, I do give out my cell phone if patients are really deaf or hard of hearing so that they can FaceTime me for issues or how to clean so they don't always have to drive far. So sometimes I have patients that have FaceTimed me, I've done home visits for, and they still want to return, and that really sucks sometimes. However, I really try to utilize all of the great rapport and some of those great conversations and let them know that, hey, I am here to help you. I'm here as a professional. I'm not here to quote-unquote sell you, but I'm here to help your hearing needs. And again, I feel, even though we have great rapport, I want to go back to those questions. Do you feel you have a hearing loss? Why did you take them if you didn't benefit from them? What changed from when you got them until now? So I have had patients that we have great rapport and then, unfortunately, still want to return, but I still use those same direct questions to unearth what's really going on. Great question, Iris. Wonderful. David, we have another question here from Steven. He asks, what happens when your patient gets frustrated and gets angry? So like I said this morning, I had a great example. God was testing me with my disgruntled patient, and he was very upset because, unfortunately, he wanted to send his hearing aid out for repair, and he wanted a loaner, and, unfortunately, our company does not provide loaners. So he was very upset this morning because his hearing is important, which it is for all of us, as well as patients with hearing problems. They don't want to be without their babies. And I totally get it. Again, our job is to stay calm, collected, with a clear mindset and game plan how to navigate patients from upset to being happy. And so, again, I let the patients vent because, yes, they're valid with some of their frustrations, and they may yell, and they may use colorful language, which I heard this morning before my coffee. However, I still just want to stay calm, show that I am the professional, and then just help patients based on that. We do not want to meet the patients where they are as far as their frustration level. We always want to stay professional and clear and level-headed. And sometimes if they're too upset, then I literally will walk away and let them simmer down, and then I'll come back. We have to show that we're – this is our – we're the boss. This is our clinic. You don't run us. You don't tell us and dictate us what to do. We're the professionals. We're here to guide you. So if the patients are a little bit yelling and things like that, I let them calm down, and I may take a break and say, I'll be with you in just one moment until you calm down. Great. Thank you, David. Now, we have our last question for today. This is from Minerva. She asks, what is a good conversation to have with a patient that has returned one or two sets of hearing aids and is back to the office wanting to try the journey again? I'm always – when we ask, like, some patients, have you had hearing aids before? Have you ever had a hearing test before? We're asking those questions, and it comes up that they had some in the past, or you know that they personally returned some with you. I've had patients return hearing aids and then a year later come back to get them, and you want to say, okay, yes, they're still entitled to their full trial period because the law states that. But I'm going to be more direct with patients and say, okay, why do you – what's different than before? Why do you feel that you need them now? What's different with your life now than before? The reason that you returned them, are they still present? And then often people – patients will say, well, I feel that I'm really missing out on things. I really notice that I'm missing out on things more. And then, okay, then that's something that we want to go on. But we're going to ask, what's changed from now until with the other set? Why do you feel that you need them now and you didn't need them before? What's going on? What has changed in your life or your hearing needs that now you feel that you need them? Wonderful. Thank you, David, for an excellent presentation. And thank you, everyone, for joining us today on the IHS webinar, Transforming a Hearing Aid Return into a Satisfied Patient Experience. If you'd like to get in contact with David, you may email him at supermanfraser at gmail.com. For more information about receiving a continuing education credit for this webinar through IHS, visit the IHS website at ihsinfo.org. Click on the webinar banner or find more information on the webinar tab on the navigation menu. IHS members receive a substantial discount on CE credits. So if you're not already an IHS member, you will find more information at ihsinfo.org. Please keep an eye out for the feedback survey you'll receive tomorrow via email. We ask that you take just a moment to answer a few brief questions about the quality of today's presentation. Thank you again for being with us today, and we'll see you at the next IHS webinar.

hearing aid return

satisfied patient experience

establishing rapport

patient needs

individualizing appointment

oral rehabilitation

patient objections

assertiveness

realistic expectations