Healthcare Professionals
Most cases of hearing loss is a slow process that is difficult and stigmatized for affected patients to self-diagnose. It is commonly thought of as part of aging, but the reality is that age-related hearing loss starts decades earlier. Noise induced hearing loss especially in younger populations is the fastest growing cause of hearing loss and may soon exceed age related hearing loss. The effects of both age-related hearing loss and noise induced hearing loss are cumulative, which further compounds the problem in a growing aging population.
Patients depend on trusted doctors and especially primary care providers (PCPs) to diagnose hearing loss and to refer them to hearing specialists if need be. These specialty evaluations of hearing are labor intensive, require highly skilled audiologists or test administrators, and consume valuable office real estate.
Today, most PCPs and other trusted healthcare professionals who could test their patients for hearing loss choose not to do so. Even though they are fully billable to insurance, current hearing tests are too complex and too costly for providers to prioritize over other alternatives, until now.
Hearing Healthcare ProTM Product Suite is an easy-to use, portable, and cost-effective hearing test device that overcomes historical barriers, allowing any provider to test for hearing loss and participate in its diagnosis. It is a small and simple device that eliminates the need for additional office space or a highly trained technician. Test outputs are easy to interpret and include triage recommendations. Most of all, providers are now motivated to test for hearing loss as much as possible with affordable fixed costs accompanied by a comparatively attractive margin and usage structure.
This unique system performs the following functions:
- Pure tone threshold hearing testing
- Simulation of any measured hearing loss
- Intakes relevant clinical history
- Intakes relevant physical examination
- Intakes results of hand held tympanometry
It uses this data to develop management recommendations and will guide clinicians about the use of tuning fork testing. The algorithm within the software suggests a diagnosis in the majority of patients with hearing loss. Finally, it produces a report in pdf format for either printing or imbedding into electronic medical records. All accumulated data is stored in a cloud hosted database that can be queried and retrieved at a later date.
Hearing testing with Hearing Healthcare ProTM suite in a medical practice:
- Is a covered service by most insurance plans, including Medicare and Medicaid
- Can be performed in an examination room while waiting for the provider to arrive
The first goal of dB Diagnostic Systems is to improve access and availability for early diagnosis of hearing loss so that patients have adequate time to acknowledge, accept, and adapt to the change. The second goal is to streamline those patients to the appropriate hearing provider and improve utilization of resources in a changing healthcare environment.
Otolaryngologists & Audiologists
The population of hearing impaired is growing while the number of hearing professionals is shrinking. Otolaryngologists are seeing more patients with hearing disorders and will continue to see that segment grow. Audiologists need more scheduled time to help patients who need hearing aids or are having issues with their hearing devices
For the busy otolaryngology and/or audiology practice, Hearing Healthcare Pro has the solution.
- Easy quick setup by a medical assistant requiring minimal training.
- Accurate pure tone threshold audiometery performed in an exam room typically under 8 minutes.
- Text messaging to the logged in user when the test is 80% complete so that medical assistants can multi-task during testing.
- Simulation of hearing test results to demonstrate the severity of the hearing loss for patients and their loved ones.
- Software also captures results of tympanometry, otology directed clinical history, and gross assessment of ear examination (normal v abnormal).
- Results assembled into standard audiologic report in pdf format.
- Data saved to cloud database so that results can be looked at system-wide.
This re-introduces on demand audiology for busy practices that wish to expand their internal service offering or provide audiology services when an audiologist is unavailable. It is a practical and efficient method to widely increase the number of patients who get hearing tests at otolaryngology practices.
Independent Audiologists & Hearing Specialists
dB Diagnostics is committed to improving access to hearing healthcare, and doing so with improved safety. Hearing Healthcare Pro identifies patients with potentially medically treatable forms of hearing loss from those suggestive of the common uncomplicated bilateral symmetrical sensorineural hearing who may be best managed with hearing aids. Further, it will help physicians triage those patients who are best served by otolaryngology versus those best served by referral directly to audiology or hearing specialist.