Starting to get a hearing aid. The process raises questions about how the market works.
Apparently, from Consumer Report reviews there's little difference among the leading brands. But the prices seem high, particularly when you look at some of the personal devices being hawked on the Internet. How do audiologists get away with charging so much and why doesn't competition drive the price down?
Probably part of it is an information disparity, such as we often feel when dealing with doctors, etc. The audiologist selling the hearing aids knows a lot more than we do as a first-time buyer. And once we have a good experience with her/him, we'll keep going back to them.
So it's rather like buying a car--once you've bought the first one you're likely, all other things being equal, to keep going back to the same dealer and manufacturer. There's also the age factor: I suppose most aids are sold to older people and, while I wouldn't say we're gullible, I would say we're easier marks than younger types. (Note the "we"--while theoretically I could experiment with online devices, I won't--I'll go with the flow.)
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