Tag:Trends
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…
Social Distancing in Text
In light of the recent dictates for social distancing, should we go back to putting two spaces after a period when we type text?
For those of you new here, see my previous post: Two Spaces.
Dress Appropriately
“Dress Appropriately” is the two word dress code at General Motors according to this article. In our current litigious society, where it appears HR department attorney’s are compensated by the word, I found this reduction to basics fascinating. It’s also refreshing to find that it seems to be working for them.
A friend from a larger company related struggles they had with trouble makers finding loopholes in their policies. One example he cited was an employee that objected to their policy that everyone wear hard hats. In protest, the employee childishly wore a hard hat strapped to his knee, citing the policy back to them that he was indeed wearing a hard hat. He would have had a hard time defending his action as dressing appropriately.
I don’t know if this is a solution to all things, but it refreshing to see the move to put responsibility for common sense back on employees, rather than treating them as imbeciles. As the article suggests, employees can, and should be expected to, think on their own… to do the right thing… to use common sense…
I am fortunate to have good people working here that I can trust to do the right thing… the appropriate thing… 99% of the time. That other 1%? We all have lapses in judgement, but they’re generally small and self-correcting after some good natured ribbing from their peers. “______ appropriately” could well be the correct policy for a multitude of things that fit in that blank.
Image borrowed from Keep Calm-O-Matic. You can purchase their products here.
Suburban Sprawl in Culver?
Wikipedia defines Suburban Sprawl thus: “Urban sprawl or suburban sprawl describes the expansion of human populations away from central urban areas into low-density, monofunctional and usually car-dependent communities, in a process called suburbanization.” While Culver isn’t exactly racing down the road to strip malls, it’s worth looking at the changes occuring in recent and proposed developments in Culver.
Culver’s early development was very traditional. Despite dealing with the curvature of Lake Maxinkuckee, a traditional grid system was used for both the commercial and residential areas with the section of Lake Shore Drive along the Park being one of the few deviations with some curvature to reflect the lake shore. Since that time, the newer subdivisions have not followed the grid. The Riggings, Maple Ridge and Edgewood Estates are all dead end or loop streets with no plans to tie into the grid. It’s a little cheesy, but Adam Conover of “Adam Explains Everything” does a quick run down of some of the issues here:
Damore Amphitheater – Preconstruction Meeting
We had the preconstruction meeting for the Damore Amphitheater this morning. We had all the staking completed and the tiers painted on the grass… but the paint didn’t show up too well through the snow! (See Right) Happy April!!! Not exactly the way we wanted to start the project…
The timelike on this calls for completion by Memorial Day. Despite the snow fall Mother Nature so rudely dropped on us today, we should still be good to go for that. There may be some plantings that stretch that date if the nurseries can’t open, but it’s too soon to be pessimistic about that. We have most of our orders placed and should be good to go with all of the hardscape.
Conceptual Drawing
FH Decks and Landscaping, Inc. will be our major subcontractor on this project, completing the earthwork, stone work and landscape installation. We wanted to keep this project local and were happy that it turned out that way.
This project was part of Culver’s Stellar Communities application in 2016, but through fundraising and other grants, Culver was able to move forward on this project without Stellar. This was done through IHCDA’s Patronicity program. That made room for other project funding in the 2017 Stellar application. Thanks go to the Damore family stepping up as the lead sponsor. Their leadership was invaluable.
