The Beltone Office Visit – Step by Step

There are many potential causes of hearing loss - medical conditions, certain prescriptions, injury, or physical blockages can all impact hearing.  When you meet with your Beltone hearing care professional, they will ask about your personal hearing health, medical history, and environmental factors that may have contributed to your hearing loss. 

Some typical questions about your hearing may include:

• Is there hearing loss in your family?
• Are one or two ears affected?
• Were you subjected to chronic loud noise during your life?
• Do your ears ring?
• Do you have dizziness or vertigo?
• Did you have ear infections as a child?
• Do you have ear pain?
• Is it harder to hear the voices of men, women, or children?
• Do you notice environments where it's challenging to follow the conversation?

At this time, you will also be asked about any medications you take. This is important because many prescription and over-the-counter drugs are ototoxic, or harmful to your hearing. This is also the stage to mention anything else that relates to your hearing.

A hearing evaluation is a painless procedure that includes several tests to measure how well you hear a variety of sounds, such as tones and speech.  Your Beltone hearing care professional will guide you through the steps of the hearing test, which will also include a visual examination of your ear.  A baseline hearing screening is recommended at age 50, unless you're experiencing symptoms of hearing loss sooner.

Your Beltone hearing care professional will guide you through the steps of a thorough hearing evaluation, including:

• A visual examination of your ear using an otoscope
• Air and bone conduction testing
• Word discrimination testing

After your evaluation, we'll show you your results on an audiogram. An audiograms provides a visual representation of the sounds you're hearing and the sounds you're missing.

_{All Beltone practitioners strictly adhere to all federal, state and local regulations regarding hearing instrument dispensing protocols, and follow nationally accepted testing guidelines set forth by the American Speech Language Hearing Association, the American Academy of Audiology and the International Hearing Society.}

If hearing loss is found, and hearing aids are recommended, we'll show you the many styles of hearing aids that may be right for you.  You can try on actual hearing aids to determine the best fit.

Based on your audiogram results, your Beltone professional will program your selected hearing aids to your specific hearing loss using our proprietary Solus fitting software.  This software is patient-focused and allows you to be a pivotal part of the process. Hearing your best is a personal matter. That's why the fitting process is interactive at Beltone. When we fit your new hearing aids, your thoughts and feelings guide the process, and your input shapes the outcome.

Solus was designed to help your hearing care professional:

• Show you pictures of a variety of Beltone hearing instruments from which to select
• Recommend specific environmental programs based on your lifestyle needs
• Program and adjust your selected instruments based on your specific hearing loss
• Review and save all settings for follow-up visits

During the fitting process, we also review the many features your Beltone hearing aids offer to make your listening experience second to none. Adjusting to your new hearing aids can happen the moment you put them on, or take a few days.