Our mission, at Audiology Specialists, is to make life easier for you. We achieve this by helping you hear and communicate more easily. Dr. Laura O’Brien Robertson, AuD puts significant effort into maintaining education about new developments related to hearing, both in scientific areas and in knowing about products and support options for your hearing loss. She has 35 years of professional experience in hearing care and has been helping members of the Lakes Region since 1992.

It has been our pleasure to help you hear as well as possible and to help you maintain your hearing aids. It will continue to be our pleasure to help you. Those who obtained hearing aids via United Health Care Hearing were entitled to a maximum of 4 visits, over the first year of wearing the new hearing aids. We will continue to honor this arrangement. It has always been understood that you are welcome to return after that first year, but you will need to personally pay for your appointment. Typical follow up appointments range from $75 to $125. This price has not changed.

United Health Care and United Health Care-Hearing have made it difficult for Audiology Specialists continue to do business with them. They only cover very basic hearing testing. They do not cover advanced hearing testing, such as speech understanding in noise, which provides important information towards making a good purchase decision. UHC-H continues to increase the cost of their products AND continue to reduce options available to patients. They mislead patients by indicating top-of-the-line products which are not actually the top products available. Thus, patients are paying more and getting less. The compensation they provide to providers, for professional services, is insufficient. During the past year, we learned that Relate hearing aids, which can only be purchased via UHC-H are “locked” hearing aids. This means that it requires special software to fit and adjust them, which is not available to every provider, everywhere. This can significantly limit your ability to get the service you need, when you need it. Over the past year, we have had several instances where telephone personnel at UHC/UHC-H have advised patients to purchase hearing aids which are different from those recommended by Dr. Robertson. These personnel lack education, knowledge or experience to give such advice. Now, they have a new policy whereby they will not cover any hearing testing if your provider is not providing hearing aids via UHC-H. Audiology Specialists has always provided a pay-at-time-of-service discount. A hearing test is typically $215-$400. Our discounted price with payment at the time of service is $125.

If you are considering a new hearing aid purchase, Audiology Specialists has a variety of products at a variety of prices. Many of the prices are comparable, or better, to those available through UHC-H.

Regardless of where or how you obtain your hearing aids, Dr. Robertson, AuD, is here for you. We are determined to provide the best patient care possible for our patients. The knowledge and expertise you enjoy from Audiology Specialists, is invaluable to helping you hear as well and as effortlessly as possible. We look forward to seeing you!

Regards,

Laura O’Brien Robertson, AuD, Doctor of Audiology