The "Why" of In-Home Audiology: Bringing Hearing Care Back Home

This is the first of three posts where I go in-depth on in-home and telehealth audiology. First, we'll talk about why in-home audiology works and who it works for (spoiler: it's most people). Next, I'll walk you through what an in-home audiology appointment with Sono Audiology actually looks like. Finally, we'll dive into the role telehealth plays in our in-home care model.

At Sono Audiology, we believe in-home care makes sense - and not just for audiology, but for a lot of healthcare. Here's a fact that surprises most people: through the 1930s, as many as 40% of all doctor-patient visits happened in the patient's home. Since then, house calls have fallen off a cliff. By the late 1990s, fewer than 1% of visits happened at home, according to American Family Physician.

Sure, there's an efficiency that comes with moving the patient from the home to a central location - your doctor's office. But at what cost? What are we - both you the patient and me the provider - missing out on when we move away from in-home care?

In-home audiology is convenient (let's start with the obvious)

Let's get the easy one out of the way first: it's convenient.

I have a great primary care doctor. But if I have to see him in person, I spend more time in the car and the waiting room than I actually spend talking to him. I don't know about you, but those are precious minutes I could be using for other things. So the moment my doctor started offering telehealth visits, I jumped on it every chance I got.

There's no reason audiology can't work the same way. Why drive to a clinic, fight for parking, and sit in a waiting room - just so I can spend 15 minutes cleaning your hearing aids or 45 minutes testing your hearing?

The number of patients I saw in my previous clinics who had to do exactly that - on top of taking time off work, finding child care, or scheduling medical transportation to and from the clinic - was staggering. That was my infomercial-style "there must be a better way!" moment, and it's what led to the creation of Sono Audiology. Now you can have Sono come to your house when you're home, or your office on your lunch break - wherever works best for you.

The real benefits go beyond convenience

But in-home audiology isn't just about convenience. There are real, clinical benefits to doing assessments, consultations, and hearing aid services in your home.

A classic 1989 study in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society looked at the "yield" of home visits and found that, compared to in-clinic appointments, in-home visits routinely uncovered more patient problems - and ended with more recommendations from the provider. That's a lot of concerns, and a lot of potential quality-of-life improvements, being left on the table in a traditional clinic visit.

Some of that comes down to the naturally less-rushed pace of an in-home visit. When I schedule an in-home appointment, I make sure we have time to really get down to what your goals are and how we can achieve them together.

But there are also things I can see in your home that I simply can't see in a clinic. We all spend a good deal of our time in our homes (or offices), so seeing your space helps me understand your real-world needs.

Seeing your space changes the care I can provide

That's exactly why I built Sono's Hearing At Home Assessment (I'll cover the HAHA in depth in a future post). It's designed to look at everything from optimizing your home for easier communication, to checking on hearing safety, to talking through which accessories and communication strategies will actually help you most.

Sure, we can talk about all of that in a clinic. But *seeing* it makes it far easier for you and me to discuss it in context — in the rooms where you actually live and listen.

Hearing care is whole-person care

Finally, as audiologists, we're trained to look at more than just hearing. We also assess balance concerns and falls risk. During an in-home visit, I'm paying attention to how your home environment supports — or threatens — your mobility, and what we might be able to do to reduce your risk of a fall.

That's the kind of whole-person perspective that's hard to get from behind a desk in a clinic.

Is in-home audiology right for you?

I created Sono Audiology because I'm all in on in-home care — and after reading this, I hope you are too. Sometimes you truly need to go to the doctor's office. But sometimes there are far more benefits to having your provider come to you.

In my next post, we'll look at the "how" of in-home audiology: how it can be just as accurate as in-clinic testing (even without the sound booth), and what a visit actually looks like, from the moment I ring your doorbell to the moment I leave.

In the meantime, if you think Sono Audiology's in-home model might be a good fit for you, give us a call and schedule your first appointment today. And if you still have questions, we're always happy to answer them over the phone at (503) 395-0182.

Sono Audiology provides in-home and telehealth audiology across Gresham, Portland, and the surrounding Multnomah and Clackamas County communities.