Technology and Hearing Aids
Richard Wagner, a Miracle-Ear franchisee who owns hearing centers in and around Orange County and the Los Angeles areas, did not initially have a desire to work in the hearing industry. Even though he has suffered from a hearing loss since he was nine years old, he was the franchise owner of another type of business before joining Miracle-Ear. However, he grew impatient with the medical community telling him there was no option to improve his hearing and remedy his hearing loss; the medical professionals never shared with Wagner that he might benefit from wearing hearing aids.
Wagner has worked with Miracle-Ear for 25 years and has owned hearing centers for 12 years. “Miracle-Ear is the best to work for,” boasts Wagner. He has worked his way up within the company, starting off as a hearing consultant before owning hearing centers and employing a dedicated staff that has been with him for a long time.
It is obvious, when talking with Wagner, that he enjoys his job and is passionate about what he does. He encourages his staff of his hearing centers to get involved with their local community by hosting open houses, attending health fairs and volunteering at different places within the community. Wagner’s knowledge of hearing aids and the hearing industry is expansive. He is also extremely proud of the equipment at his hearing centers; they are all state-of-the-art facilities with up-to-date equipment in order to provide patient’s with quality hearing tests. Everything in Wagner’s hearing centers is “totally computerized.”
Speaking of computerization, the hearing aid industry has changed drastically over the past five to ten years, when it comes to advancements in technology and digitalization of hearing aids. In the last year alone, Wagner says the industry has really jumped. Now, hearing aids can do some much more than they used to be able to, such as reduce background noise and help the patient focus on the people they are talking to. Hearing aids can also reduce wind noises, be activated with a patient’s Bluetooth on their cell phones, and receive signals from their television so the patient can still hear the TV from a different room.
“Hearing aids nowadays know the difference between speech, noise, and music and can switch between them automatically,” says Wagner.
The size of hearing aids has drastically miniaturized within the last decade, as well. Wagner says that Miracle-Ear is known as a company that has invisible or almost invisible hearing aids. What he is referring to is the technology used with the Open Canal hearing aid. Open Canal technology allows the modern components of the hearing aid to be hidden both over the ear and deep inside the ear canal. In addition to the device being virtually invisible, Open Canal hearing aids have many acoustic advantages, including the elimination of the plugged feeling many patients experience with hearing aids, as well as the elimination of squealing or feedback that many patients often experience with non-Open Canal hearing aids.