Joseph M. Ficarra Mr. Ficarra started in the hearing aid industry in 1965. He has served in executive positions of multi-national hearing aid manufacturing companies, retail audiology companies, hearing aid battery companies and in ENT hearing aid dispensaries. Mr. Ficarra is a licensed hearing instrument specialist. Click here to view complete hearing aid experience.

We provide the best value in hearing care in the USA EVERYDAY

BE AN EDUCATED CONSUMER

It seems as though the generation that said you can't trust anyone over 30 may have been right. In today's society we all need to be our own advocates because, unfortunately, we live in an age where we are continually bombarded by exaggeration, half truths, incompetence and/or flat out lies.

It appears, almost daily, that CEO'S ,CFO'S, accounting firms, politicians, physicians, stock brokers, athletes research institutions, pharmaceutical companies and clergy grow Pinocchio noses on the front pages of the world's press.

The hearing aid business is a “business”, have no illusions about that. This business is populated by people regardless of their academic and/or professional credentials who have a profit motive in swaying you one way or another. Some hearing aid manufacturers actively try to price fix the retail selling price of their hearing aids by not supplying some, or all of their products to dispensers who discount. These companies have a vested interest in maintaining an unrealistic retail pricing structure to the hearing impaired consumer because they feel that if their products are discounted to the consumer then they will have to lower the selling price to the dispenser therefore cutting the ridiculous profit margins they are making, this competition inhibiting practice is not unlike companies who refuse to sell Wal-Mart, Costco, Home Depot/Lowe’s or anyone else who has championed value pricing to consumers.

In 2007 only 5.7 million hearing aids were sold worldwide and only 2 million hearing aids were sold in the United States. In Florida in 2005 ,141,553 hearing aids were sold which represents 6.44% of the total amount of hearing aids sold in the U.S. that year. 90% of the worldwide production of hearing aids is controlled by 6 multi-national hearing aid conglomerates who market their hearing aids under 27 different brand names. These six companies are Siemens, Oticon, Starkey, Widex, Phonak and GN-Resound. All of these hearing aids manufacturers purchase microphones, receivers, circuits and volume controls from the same component suppliers. All six of these manufacturers produce quality products. Some of these products have more features than others, however the actual discernable consumer listening/understanding difference is essentially the same. There is very little difference, if any, in hearing aids today because of computer-aided design and computer aided manufacturing/production. All hearing aid factories have computerized quality control. Product parity is the norm. If one hearing aid was clearly superior to all others it would be braodcast all over the national news media and you would have to wait in line to get one.

THERE GENERALLY IS NO BEST HEARING AID, HOWEVER, THERE ARE SHORT INTERVALS WHEN ONE COMPANY'S HEARING AID MAY HAVE A SHORT TERM TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANTAGE OVER THE OTHERS, WHEN ONE COMPANY INTRODUCES A UNIQUE FEATURE THE OTHER COMPANIES FOLLOW SUIT WITHIN 6 MONTHS AS IS THE NORM IN THE COMPUTER, CELL PHONE, AIRLINE, AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRIES, ETC. Hearing aids are basically prescription lenses for you ears. The benefit that the hearing aid provides is in direct proportion to the amount of damage done to your organ of hearing. For example if you have an 80% speech understanding score with hearing aids no hearing aid will change your speech understanding from 80% to 100% regardless of how much you spend on it. The difference in hearing aid features /cost /benefits is how well you will hear what speech understanding you have left in a variety of noise enviornments.

Hearing aids are being manufactured today with "Surplus Complexity". Surplus complexity is when companies bundle too many functions into a single product in hopes of widening their market share.The more complex the product, the more expensive it is. The hearing aid companies make more profit from the more expensive products. The people who dispense hearing aids make more profit from the expensive products and you pay more because everyone tries to convince you that you need every bell & whistle that's available whether you really need it or not.

The success you will have with hearing aids is dependent on a variety of factors, namely:

• Realistic expectations
• The hearing aid expertise and counseling skills of the person you purchase it from
• Choosing the hearing aids with the features and benefits which best compliment your lifestyle

HEARING AIDS ARE A BLIND ITEM
Hearing aids are virtually impossible to compare because their successful use is totally dependant on your hearing pathology, not the brand of hearing aids you choose. Therefore, I think it is important to reflect on how you generally make decisions.

THERE ARE SIX CRITERIA BY WHICH MOST OF US DECIDE WHETHER SOMETHING IS TRUE:

1. Consensus - A lot of what we call truth is assumed to be correct because of consensus. It is conventional wisdom everyone knows” X” to be true.
2. Consistency - This criterion is based on the assumption that if a fact fits with other facts regarded as true, so it must be true.
3. Authority - The doctor, the audiologist, a company’s press release on hearing aids, a friend that is happy with their hearing aids, we seldom in any coherent way test the actual capability of an authority relying instead on the image of authority conferred by a title, diploma, the force of someone’s personality or an accreditation agency of some type.
4. Revelation - For some, the truth is based on what is presumed to be mystical revelation. It cannot be questioned, it just is.
5. Durability - Here the test of truth is based on age and durability. Has the truth stood the test of time? Here the truth is not a god, a book or a person but the immense slice of time called the past.
6. Science is different from all the other truth-testing criteria. It is the only one that depends on rigorous testing

In the hearing aid industry, nobody can provide you with any scientific evidence that one brand of hearing aids is better for your hearing loss than another brand of hearing aids. The success you will have with hearing aids is in direct relationship to how much damage is done to your organ of hearing and not the brand of hearing aids you choose. No brand of hearing aid will provide you with 100% correction, no matter how much you spend on it. The difference between an inexpensive digital hearing aid and a more expensive digital hearing is that with the more expensive one you will hear clearer in more noise environments.

The only real difference in hearing aids is how they are marketed by manufactures to hearing aid dispensers and by the hearing aid dispensers to consumers.

We are sure that when you know how to compare apples to apples you will not want to trust your hearing health care to anyone but VALUE HEARING CARE.

WE PROVIDE THE BEST VALUE IN HEARING CARE IN THE UNITED STATES!

Value Hearing Care was established in 2002 and was started to provide the best cost benefit in hearing aids along with a superior package of value added benefits for the hearing impaired customer.

Value Hearing Care was created from the ground up to minimize operating expenses and pass the resultant savings onto you in lower hearing aid acquisition costs.

HOW CAN WE SELL BRAND NAME HEARING AIDS FOR LESS?

Most of the cost associated with the higher retail cost of hearing aids is directly attributed to markups at the retail level specifically, operating expenses and advertising costs. In 2007, the hearing aid manufacturers suggested retail prices for advanced digital technology has reached $4,000-$5,800 per hearing aid.

I feel these prices are absurd and are created, in no small part, by a very inefficient hearing aid delivery system consisting of ENT's, audiologist, hearing aid stores and mass merchants all selling a few hearing aids per month at very high markups.

It makes no sense, whatsoever, that computer prices, flat screen TV’s and electronic devices of all sorts prices are coming down but hearing aid prices keep rising. It's because of an inefficient hearing aid delivery system comprised of 14-16,000 dispensing outlets selling 2 million hearing aids annually in the USA.

Value Hearing Care works by appointment only, maximizes efficiencies, spreads advertising cost over many locations, and works on reduced profit margins while providing optimal patient care at reduced prices.

You get more information through your ears to your brains than through all our other senses combined. Our ears are never off even when we sleep. Hearing is vital to our emotional and physical well being. Untreated hearing loss makes people angry, anxious, suspicious, hostile, erodes self image and at later stages creates depression and like alcoholism effects everyone in the family.

I am dedicated to the belief that no one should be without a hearing because of financial issues and that people who have communication disorders should not be stopped from getting help because of unrealistic retail prices.

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