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אַרְיֵה |
I sent written notification to the company that provides my prescription medication insurance, that I can not be contacted by telephone because hearing aid incompatibility with telephone. I supplied them with both an email address and a postal address. I received a letter from them thanking me for notifying them of this, and giving me a phone number to contact customer care in the event that I need anything else. הרחפת שלי מלאה בצלופחים | ||
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Member |
Can you not hear your tv or radio then? _____________________ Be careful what you tolerate. You are teaching people how to treat you. | |||
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| אַרְיֵה |
I can hear sounds. I have a difficult time understanding words. Telephone is even worse. If I try to hold a phone to my ear, there is a terrible raucous squalling feedback screech. Trying to switch a phone to speaker results in sounds that are loud enough, but poor frequency response makes the words indistinguishable. I do not remember the last time I listened to radio other than when flying, where I use an amplified, noise-cancelling, headset. As far as TV, I do not watch with the exception of the occasional news program where I read the closed captioning. I mute the sound because it is aggravating to hear "noise" and not be able to understand what is being said. The only time I have even a chance of using the telephone is when I'm driving the Ford. The "sync" system uses the car radio amplifier and speakers for the telephone. Even then, I have maybe 70% comprehension of male voices, probably less than half that for female because of the frequencies involved. I don't spend that much time in the car, so it's not too likely that I'll be able to receive a phone call. Since the probability of understanding a phone call is so small, I have most calls go directly to voicemail. This way I can see a missed call and if I know the caller I can send an email or text. הרחפת שלי מלאה בצלופחים | |||
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| Thank you Very little  |
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Only the strong survive |
Some phone amplifiers have a frequency adjustment control. Most phone services use a woman for instructions not realizing that hearing impaired people have a loss of high frequency levels so listening to a woman's voice is useless. The worst part is that you just play along like you understand what they said. Also I have noticed that there is an engineering problem when someone designed the headset to be used instead of a handset. There is a 3 db loss for the headset due to the lack of a matching circuit with an amplifier to adjust for the connection loss. Anytime I call 911, they are on a headset and I can't understand them unless they switch to a handset. They really get pissed and don't understand the problem because it is nationwide. 41 | |||
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A Grateful American |
Tried that excuse on the spouse before she was an ex-. Yeah, that's when the fight started. "the meaning of life, is to give life meaning" ✡ Ani Yehudi אני יהודי Le'olam lo shuv לעולם לא שוב! | |||
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| Member |
Well I was wondering if a speakerphone with or without some modification might work. And I understand that you've certainly experimented with this. _____________________ Be careful what you tolerate. You are teaching people how to treat you. | |||
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| אַרְיֵה |
The best comprehension I have for telephone is in the car with its multiple decent quality speakers. Speakerphones tend to have moderately crappy speakers, but that's a non-issue for me anyway, as I don't have a landline. Nor a speakerphone. Not worth spending the $$ on. Email and text work fine. הרחפת שלי מלאה בצלופחים | |||
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| Only the strong survive |
I have one of the Ameriphone HA-30 which has 30 db of amplification. They also have one with 40 db.  It has a volume and tone adjustment. It is connected between the handset and phone and is powered by a 9-volt battery. My problem is that I am too far from the Central Office so my audio level is the minimum. https://www.amazon.com/AWM-Cla...SSC0P5TCCP800RCEMDT1 41 | |||
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| אַרְיֵה |
If I turn up the volume on an incomprehensible sound I get a louder incomprehensible sound. הרחפת שלי מלאה בצלופחים | |||
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| Only the strong survive |
But it has a tone control where you can turn up the lows to understand the woommanns better.  No double talk.41 | |||
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| Member |
You may wish to pursue this issue beyond SigForum. There are many laws in this country that address the issues of disability. Hearing impairment is one of them. Sadly I deal with insurance companies frequently. It is my experience that a well written email to the correct department will get a letter of apology and a correction to the matter. I have a friend who is black, female and handicapped. She is very nice, but she is an expert in handling these situations when they occur. She is not loud, obnoxious or difficult. She writes letters or sends emails to the right people. Taking to social media is not something I would do, but it often does produce results. I do hope you pursue this because hearing impairment is most certainly disabling. | |||
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| אַרְיֵה |
Believe me, ZSM, I do take this stuff to the appropriate people. I was not looking for corrective action with my OP. Realize, that this is the "rant" section. I was pointing out the irony of the reply letter that I received from the insurance company. To wit,
הרחפת שלי מלאה בצלופחים | |||
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| Member |
Ok thanks. I am glad that you took the proper action and wish that others would do the same to correct these sorts of things. I was responding to the perceived tone of your posting, one of the disadvantages of using written communication only. | |||
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| Member |
I have profound hearing loss. My left ear can only hear sounds below the normal speech range and my right ear is only a little better. I have Widex hearing aids and have a separate unit that connects via Bluetooth to my iPhone or a Bluetooth compatible handset. It then connects to my hearing aids using a different wireless technology. The phone conversation is sent to both ears and makes it easier to understand what is being said. Widex is coming out with an updated hearing aid similar to the type I have today that does away with the blue tooth and allows the iPhone to connect directly to both hearing aids. As soon as it comes out I will upgrade to them. There are also devices that connect to a TV and send the sound directly to your hearing aids. Sgt. USMC 1970 - 1973 | |||
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member |
V-Tail, have you considered a TTY/TDD device for your phone? Many if not most companies provide separate numbers for TTY callers, and often as not, because of ADA, they are answered quickly with no annoying menus or queues. Also, each (I believe every) state has a TTY relay service. We have been paying for this as an added little tax on our phone bills for a couple of decades now. The person with the TTY calls the relay service, who then relays a conversation with a speaking person. Or just the opposite, the speaking person calls the relay service to reach the TTY person. I am aware of this because my Dad was totally deaf from 1975 until his passing in 2002. His first device was provided free to him by some deaf-help organization, and it took up half the living room as it was an original but refurbished, mechanical teletype machine (the kind wire services used to use). Nowadays they are all digital, of course, and about the size of a laptop. The less expensive models take a phone handset set into a rubber cradle, like an early modem. Higher end devices just plug into the phone line. Some have printing capability, but most just use an LCD screen, like this one:  That's the model I used to use for communicating with my Dad. Click the picture for more info. | |||
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Member |
Insurance companies are also in the habit of screwing the hospital coding departments. My wife regularly deals with patients who were told by insurance reps "The hospital coded that wrong so we can't pay it." | |||
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| אַרְיֵה |
HenryAZ -- The device you show requires a phone line, ¿si? I got no phone line. Just cell, which I use primarily for a pocket device for written communications: text and email. I wonder if an iPod touch might give me the same capability as a cell phone re text and email. הרחפת שלי מלאה בצלופחים | |||
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| Eschew Obfuscation |
 Seems to be my father-in-law's strategy. My wife will talk to him for 5 minutes and then he'll turn to me and ask "What did she say?" Somehow, he can understand me, and it only takes me 15 seconds to tell him what she said. He says he can't make out female voices. My wife suspects he's just ignoring her.  _____________________________________________________________________ “Civilization is not inherited; it has to be learned and earned by each generation anew; if the transmission should be interrupted for one century, civilization would die, and we should be savages again." - Will Durant | |||
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| אַרְיֵה |
Truth. My hearing loss, as in many many hearing impaired people, is most significant in the high frequencies. Female voices are much more difficult for me to understand than male voices. Consonant recognition needs high frequency hearing. Vowel sounds are easy, consonants are tough. For example, I have trouble distinguishing between ache, bake, cake, fake, lake, make, rake, take, sake ... they all sound alike to me. To some extent with a male voice, but much more so with a female voice. Telephone is really bad because it does a poor job of transmitting high frequencies. If I put a telephone to my ear it interacts with the hearing aid in that ear and sets up a feedback loop that screeches and squeals. הרחפת שלי מלאה בצלופחים | |||
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