Choosing the Right Audiologist in Anchorage

Choosing the Right Audiologist in Anchorage: A Comprehensive Guide

01/02/2025 | Patient Resources

Hearing healthcare is a wide breadth of topics, from removing earwax to hearing tests, all the way to choosing the best hearing aids for you. Because so many aspects fall within an audiologist’s scope of practice, many patients want to know how to choose the best audiologist.

There are various aspects patients should look into before choosing an audiologist, including their services, if they follow best practices, what accessibility they provide, the ability to connect with the provider, and how they use their patients’ feedback to improve.

For many patients, this can be an information overload! This guide will hopefully guide the reader to know what to look for to find the best audiologist for them and their hearing needs.

Accessibility and Flexibility

In a perfect world, all audiology clinics would be accessible to patients of all ages, abilities, and languages and be easy to access with minimal hurdles.

However, the world isn’t always perfect, which is why your goal as the patient is to make sure the office you choose is accessible for you, meets your needs, and is able to grow and adapt as your needs change.

For some individuals, this may include physical accommodation such as ramps and wide doorways for wheelchairs and mobility assistive devices. For others this may mean testing booths and equipment capable of testing all ages, from the tiniest baby to the average working adult, all the way to our oldest patients.

This may also mean language barriers should be broken down as best as possible, either by an employee who is bilingual or by many facets to obtaining a translator, whichever way is necessary to facilitate good and clear communication.

Accessibility to communication can also include a clinic that provides scheduling, appointment information, and access to providers via in-person appointments, telehealth appointments, phone calls, texting, and email.

This could also include being able to adapt to any disabilities a patient may have and adapting and adjusting to their needs, whether it be a patient who is Deaf, has low vision, has cognitive decline, or has any other various disorders. Ultimately, flexible offices and providers who are willing to change and adapt to provide access to their services are the gold standard!

Gold-Standard Services

The next focus many patients have is regarding the services provided at any specific clinic. All the following services listed are ones our office provides; however, one special note here for our Alaskan patients is that Alaska does not provide vestibular (also known as balance) services, and anyone seeking a full vestibular evaluation can be referred out of state to a practicing provider.

Our services include comprehensive diagnostic hearing evaluations for both adults and pediatrics, job-related hearing testing, in-booth hearing aid testing, in-depth hearing aid consultations, hearing aid repairs and technology assessments, tinnitus management, cochlear implant evaluation and follow-up care, earwax removal, auditory processing testing, custom hearing protection, and many more individualized services that would take too long to list here!

When searching for a clinic, it is imperative you ensure the clinic you visit offers the services you need, as that will ensure the best care for you possible! Our advice is to find a clinic that offers as many services as possible, as they are more likely to be able to adapt with you as you and your family’s hearing healthcare needs change.

In addition to generalized services, it is also important to ensure that the offices are upholding their skills to the gold standard and following the profession’s best practices. These best practices can range from updated testing and treatment protocols as the field learns more all the way to specific testing or treatment protocols during certain appointments to ensure the best experience and knowledge for the patient.

For example, during a hearing aid fitting, our office will conduct something called conformity evaluations, also known as real-ear measurements. This testing ensures there was no manufacturing error in the devices being fit, an appropriate loudness level is being produced, and it ensures that once fit to the patient, they will experience the best audibility and speech understanding possible.

Another example occurs during our comprehensive hearing test appointments. We do a test called the QuickSIN, which is a speech-in-noise test designed to show us how well the patient performs in noisy environments. This test provides a plethora of information to help us counsel the patient as well as choose the best technology and/or treatment option for them.

However, just as with real-ear measurements, not all offices conduct this test as a standard. Unfortunately, not all offices across the United States follow best practices, which is why it is very important to ensure any clinic you visit follows them.

Incorporating Patient Feedback

Finally, the best clinics also incorporate patient feedback into updating and improving the patient experience. From looking into adding additional services once requests appear all the way to adding snacks and drinks for our patients with long journeys to visit us, we aim to make the hearing journey as comfortable and helpful as possible.

Any clinic you visit should have some way to provide feedback, whether that be as simple as a review system, a suggestion box, or even a contact email that you can send any input to at any time. Many providers are also more than willing to listen to any suggestions a patient may have! Therefore, finding a clinic that is open to suggestions and feedback lets you, as the patient, know that you are in good hands.

One other fact that is important to note, which can be harder to conceptualize until you visit the practice, is how well you connect with the provider and other staff. We know that the hearing healthcare journey brings up a lot of questions and can be emotionally charged.

Because of these factors, it is extremely important that you feel safe, comfortable, and supported by any office you visit. As a provider, our main goal is to be there for our patients in all ways possible. If you visit a clinic and feel that it isn’t a good match for you, you are allowed to keep searching until you find a clinic that listens, understands, and supports you in your journey.

Green Flags for Your Hearing Care Clinic

As this article concludes, hopefully you as the patient have a stronger grasp of what green flags to look out for when choosing the hearing healthcare provider for you.

To summarize, the main things to focus on are accessibility, services provided, ensuring the office follows best practices, ensuring the office is flexible and open to suggestions, and above all, finding the clinic and clinicians that you click with to build a long-lasting relationship with.

Of course, if you have any questions about any of the things discussed, please feel free to reach out to us via phone call, text, or email, and one of our team members will be more than happy to help!

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Dr. Haley Shirley

Haley Shirley is a Doctor of Audiology based in Anchorage. Haley holds a Bachelor of Science in Speech Pathology and Audiology from Kent State University. She recently graduated from the Northeast Ohio Au.D. Consortium (NOAC), earning her Doctorate of Audiology and a Certificate in Gerontology. During her tenure at NOAC, Haley accrued substantial experience across a diverse range of clinical settings. Her professional interests currently focus on hearing diagnostics, hearing aids, and tinnitus management. An active participant in her educational community, Haley dedicated two years as the Education Committee Chair for NOAC's Student Academy of Audiology and spent three years tutoring both undergraduate and graduate courses in math, biology, and audiology. Haley is a member of the Ohio Academy of Audiology, the Student Academy of Audiology, and The Gerontological Society of America, actively contributing to the advancement of her field.

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