$6,000 new tech purchase!

Forums › Health and fitness › $6,000 new tech purchase!

MaxLV

656 posts

Ultimate Geek

#179281 3-Sep-2015 00:52

Got these last Friday...

All up cost $6,000, out of wallet cost to me $934, ACC the rest

Extra expenses to make full use of them, iPod Touch 6th Gen = $429, and a $6,000 increase in my contents cover insurance.

iPod provides full control volume and bass/treble control, streaming music/TV options, and settings/monitoring (batteries) control.

Biggest change? They've made me realise how bad my hearing loss was getting...

BTW Picked up a FitBit Surge at Noel Leemings for $299 ($50 off) yesterday, then when I get home I see Dick Smith had a 24 hour Online Only sale price of $267!

kiwitrc

4123 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#1378667 3-Sep-2015 06:13

I give my elderly neighbour a hand around his place and he has hearing aids. You may find, like I have, that they dont work very well in the drawer by the bed :)

roobarb

653 posts

Ultimate Geek

Trusted

#1378685 3-Sep-2015 07:05

I have no idea what this is about, are ACC funding iPod controlled Pixie boots?

Wade

2225 posts

Uber Geek

#1378948 3-Sep-2015 11:26

Should have requested a treadmill as well :P

lxsw20

3554 posts

Uber Geek

Subscriber

#1378966 3-Sep-2015 11:45

ACC will part fund hearing aids if you have lost your hearing though your occupation.

Have you tested in a noisy environment? Like a busy pub for example? My dad gets really frustrated with his in those types of environments, they keep muting on him and he can't make out conversations properly.

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#1379024 3-Sep-2015 13:13

lxsw20: ACC will part fund hearing aids if you have lost your hearing though your occupation.

Have you tested in a noisy environment? Like a busy pub for example? My dad gets really frustrated with his in those types of environments, they keep muting on him and he can't make out conversations properly.

They used to be fully funded. My FIL had them for years, the audiologist would recommend and order the most expensive ones possible, then supply him with so many batteries that he could have started a stall at the local market or had a nice sideline selling them on Trademe. As the aids were free, he didn't take care of them and they didn't last - so he'd end up with new ones on a regular basis.
Now they are part-funded he has to pay something toward the cost, his attitude has changed.

Our son has a special type of aid which cost about $8k for the sound-processor. That's not ACC funded at all, though the original costs were funded under the public health system until he was 18 or 21 if in formal education. I'm not sure of the device life-expectancy, but he'll need to keep some funds aside for eventual replacement. Last time it was serviced, it cost me $600, the invoice with list of service details seem to suggest that basically the whole thing was replaced - and a new sticker with the same serial number attached.

MaxLV

656 posts

Ultimate Geek

#1379151 3-Sep-2015 14:54

Fred99:
lxsw20: ACC will part fund hearing aids if you have lost your hearing though your occupation.

Have you tested in a noisy environment? Like a busy pub for example? My dad gets really frustrated with his in those types of environments, they keep muting on him and he can't make out conversations properly.

They used to be fully funded. My FIL had them for years, the audiologist would recommend and order the most expensive ones possible, then supply him with so many batteries that he could have started a stall at the local market or had a nice sideline selling them on Trademe. As the aids were free, he didn't take care of them and they didn't last - so he'd end up with new ones on a regular basis.
Now they are part-funded he has to pay something toward the cost, his attitude has changed.

Our son has a special type of aid which cost about $8k for the sound-processor. That's not ACC funded at all, though the original costs were funded under the public health system until he was 18 or 21 if in formal education. I'm not sure of the device life-expectancy, but he'll need to keep some funds aside for eventual replacement. Last time it was serviced, it cost me $600, the invoice with list of service details seem to suggest that basically the whole thing was replaced - and a new sticker with the same serial number attached.

I was offered a range of models. The audiologist has to let you select from a minimum of three different models under ACC funding rules, and not push a particular brand.

The ones I got are the advanced model, one step up from the Basic model which wouldn't have cost me anything with the ACC funding I got. The prices ranged from $2,400 to $11,000.

I use them in public, but not in a really noisy environment yet. Best test of them so far was walking down a busy Wellington street, lots of traffic noise, but I could hear clearly two people on the other of the street talking, and could hear what they were talking about. The traffic noise was being muted, and their speech amplified.

Fred99

13684 posts

Uber Geek

#1379166 3-Sep-2015 15:19

MaxLV:
Fred99:
lxsw20: ACC will part fund hearing aids if you have lost your hearing though your occupation.

Have you tested in a noisy environment? Like a busy pub for example? My dad gets really frustrated with his in those types of environments, they keep muting on him and he can't make out conversations properly.

They used to be fully funded. My FIL had them for years, the audiologist would recommend and order the most expensive ones possible, then supply him with so many batteries that he could have started a stall at the local market or had a nice sideline selling them on Trademe. As the aids were free, he didn't take care of them and they didn't last - so he'd end up with new ones on a regular basis.
Now they are part-funded he has to pay something toward the cost, his attitude has changed.

Our son has a special type of aid which cost about $8k for the sound-processor. That's not ACC funded at all, though the original costs were funded under the public health system until he was 18 or 21 if in formal education. I'm not sure of the device life-expectancy, but he'll need to keep some funds aside for eventual replacement. Last time it was serviced, it cost me $600, the invoice with list of service details seem to suggest that basically the whole thing was replaced - and a new sticker with the same serial number attached.

I was offered a range of models. The audiologist has to let you select from a minimum of three different models under ACC funding rules, and not push a particular brand.

The ones I got are the advanced model, one step up from the Basic model which wouldn't have cost me anything with the ACC funding I got. The prices ranged from $2,400 to $11,000.

I use them in public, but not in a really noisy environment yet. Best test of them so far was walking down a busy Wellington street, lots of traffic noise, but I could hear clearly two people on the other of the street talking, and could hear what they were talking about. The traffic noise was being muted, and their speech amplified.

I suspect that's one of the things which drives the cost up - they have some very sophisticated digital sound processing technology built in these days - to achieve exactly that.
In some cases they frequency shift (rather than equalise) - not normally a problem, but it was for my FIL when he was trying to tune the ukelele we bought him for his 78th birthday a few years back. It was simpler to just buy him an electronic tuner - rather than send him back to the audiologist with instructions to find out if one of the user-selectable modes could be set to turn frequency-shift off (this is apparently not possible with some aids).