Tag:Berger Audiology LLC
Audiologist’s Husband Rant
Doctor of Audiology
Just felt like venting a bit on Becky’s behalf. Becky has always loved helping people with their hearing. Her initial degree was in Deaf Education with a minor in Audiology from Ball State University. After several years of teaching, she found that it wasn’t right for her. She loved helping the children, but the administration and bureaucracy was too much. At that point we were living in Georgia. (Did you know that most teachers prepare a lesson plan for their class, while teachers of special needs students, such as deaf students, are required to fill out IEP‘s for each individual student?) We discussed it and she ended up quitting teaching and going to the University of Georgia and getting a Masters Degree in Audiology. Shortly after that we moved back to Indiana and she began practicing Audiology with a group of Doctors. While working with them, she went back to school again, obtaining her Doctorate in Audiology. She studied and understands the theory behind hearing aid technology and the anatomical parts of the ear, how they interact with the brain and how they all are affected by hearing loss.
With all Becky’s education came additional responsibility. As a Doctor of Audiology, she is under different regulations than hearing aid dispensers. She is governed by HIPAA regulations, Medicaid & Medicare regulations and other requirements; things dispensers don’t have to follow.( To be a hearing aid dispenser, there is a test you must pass with the State, but the minimum education is a GED, not a degree, let alone a Doctorate degree.)
The Doctors Becky worked for retired and she decided to go on her own. That was in 2015 when she started Berger Audiology. Less money, but more autonomy and more time to help patients. She invested in the latest technology. She is now the only full time Audiologist in Marshall County. She operates a satellite office in Winamac. But she struggles with the competition. She wrote a 2019 blog post about it here.
Since that time, things have progressively gotten worse. The government has been slowly chipping away at what differentiates an Audiology from a dispenser. On top of that, they are pushing a trend towards Over-The-Counter (OTC) hearing aide sales or even worse, over the internet. You’ve probably seen the ads by Lively which advertise a telephone consultation with an audiologist or worse, My Power Ear, which cites “no need to see an Audiologist” as a positive selling point. She’s seen patients that have bought hearing aids from big box stores, having been sold that they were getting “the latest technology”. In some cases that has turned out to be a generation or two old. Honestly she’s a bit depressed and upset every time one of those ads.
We’re all thrilled with the convenience of the internet and the ability to buy nearly anything you want from Amazon. But is this what we want for healthcare providers? Telemedicine may work for some things like getting a prescription refilled, but does it really replace hands on care? Or in the case of Becky, an Audiologist, how is a phone conversation prescribing a hearing aid equal to her, a trained professional, doing a complete physical examination and doing a hearing test in a calibrated sound booth, using the latest technology? Can they look in your ear an determine that your hearing loss is actually due to wax? Or that the type of hearing loss indicates that you need to see an ENT because there’s the potential for serious issues where hearing loss is just a symptom? Food for thought… or just my rant…
RAGBRAI
For those of you that don’t know, RAGBRAI is an annual 7 day bike ride across the state of Iowa. It’s not a race, but more of an adventure/challenge. 10,000 riders are pulled from a lottery to participate each year, dipping their tire in the Missouri River on the west side of Iowa to start and finally in the Mississippi River on the east side of Iowa at the end. They estimate as many as 20,000 additional riders are on the road any given day. RAGBRAI stands for the Register’s Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa.
Becky (my wife) has been doing RAGBRAI for nearly two decades. (Our Sister-in-Law Toni has been doing it with her for at least 10 years.) Becky & Toni train (less and less every year) throughout the Spring. The ride is always the last week of July. Generally that means it’s hot in Iowa, but since they camp every night, sometimes that’s cold. Generally the shortest days are 40-50 miles while there are longer days of 70-90 miles. For those that want an additional challenge, they usually have at least one day where they add a loop that makes it a Century Day, i.e. over 100 miles. This year the mileage total for the week was around 460 miles.
Becky and Toni leave for Iowa on the Friday before the ride. They camp the first night in the ending town and then board a bus Saturday morning to ride across the state to the starting town. They camp Saturday night and the ride starts on Sunday. A charter truck moves their tent, luggage, etc. to each day’s ending town where they pick it up, set up tents and camp for the night. This year the last day was long and they didn’t get in until after 6. There are all kinds of ending festivities, but at that point they just want to get home and usually just hit the road.
If this interests you at all, there are posts at Becky’s website, Berger Audiology, where she has recounted some of the trip highlights along with pictures from along the way. Look for the blog titled Bergerology Blog on the ribbon under the logo.
I included her first post from the first day below:
*****************************
My sister-in-law Toni and I headed out for RAGBRAI today around 12:30 pm today. We had a few setbacks that lengthened the trip, but overall it was uneventful. We have gotten stuck in traffic in Chicago almost every year, so we decided to go cross country this time, since the start was farther south in Iowa. As it turned out, that put us on a lot of county roads, so we really didn’t make any better time. I drove and the Jeep isn’t the smoothest ride!
We had to get my bike carrier modified (Thanks Burt’s Body Shop), because both of our new bikes have frames that are too small for the carrier as it was made. There aren’t many options for Jeep bike carriers, so it was good that we could “fix” it. That seemed to work well for us. We both like the newer bikes (Mine from last year and Toni’s from a year or so ago), though I’ve been struggling to find a saddle that works for me. I’ve also been having some issues with my left wrist and Toni is still having some shoulder issues, so this trip could be more challenging.
Berger Audiology, LLC
Rebecca L. Berger, AuD
A lot of you know that my wife, Dr. Rebecca Berger (Becky), has been an audiologist working at The Hearing Clinic, under Otorhinolaryngology, Inc. for over 25 years. (Both of those entities are now under Allied Physicians of Michiana, also known as APOM.) This Spring she decided to go out on her own and is starting Berger Audiology, LLC. She had always hoped to convince The Hearing Clinic to expand the services in Plymouth, but they never saw the potential that she did. The parting was as amicable as those things can be. Becky is in the process of finding a location for her new practice, purchasing equipment, developing a logo, developing a website and all the other fun things that go along with starting a new business.
If you want a status update, feel free to contact me here (574) 842-3341. Julie will know most of what’s happening, but feel free to ask for Kevin and I will give you the latest scoop!
