Saturday Spotlight: A Modern Path To Better Hearing

Waiting years to get help for hearing loss isn’t a character flaw—it’s a sign the system still feels risky and confusing. Dr. Melanie Hecker set out to change that with a path that honors courage, leverages smart tech, and puts real choice in the hands of patients without sacrificing clinical rigor.

Dr. Melanie Hecker, founder of Bluemoth, walks us through a clear journey that starts with a free consultation and moves into a robust assessment. Then comes the game‑changer: the experience box. Instead of guessing, you compare three sets of premium prescription devices at roughly 85–90 percent first‑fit, with a guided unboxing to handle pairing, apps, and realistic listening scenarios. Restaurants, meetings, phone calls—your daily life becomes the final test bench.

Along the way we tackle industry hot buttons: the provider shortage and aging population, the low adoption of real ear measurement, and the myth that patients don’t want options. We’ve seen the opposite. People arrive informed, asking about brands and features they’ve researched online, and they’re eager to co‑create the plan. What surprised us most is how often the “Goldilocks” choice defies our initial prediction. Subtle features—own voice comfort, noise handling, Bluetooth stability, or rechargeability—can make one device feel right in a way charts can’t fully predict. That feedback loops into a final, precise fit and better long‑term satisfaction.

If you or someone you love has been putting off help, this conversation offers a safer first step and a smarter way to decide. Subscribe for more candid, evidence‑based conversations about hearing health, share this episode with someone who needs a nudge, and leave a quick review to help others find the show.

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Chapters

• 0:00 The Courage To Seek Care
• 0:22 The Delay Problem And Provider Role
• 1:12 Access Gap And Market Math
• 2:13 Defining The Customer Journey
• 2:42 Remote Testing From Home
• 3:38 Candidate Screening And Referrals
• 4:26 Two Paths: Recommendation Or Trial
• 5:11 Inside The Experience Box
• 6:07 Shared Decisions Over Power Dynamics
• 6:55 Real‑World Measures And Industry Gaps
• 7:40 Patients Want Options And Education
• 8:44 Brand Knowledge And Trust
• 9:25 Surprising Trial Outcomes And Next Steps

Transcript

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS : 0:00

So, Melanie, that's so interesting. Thank you for bringing that to light because there's probably so many patients out there that are intimidated to, you know, go sit in the waiting room with other individuals. And we are humans. And while we want to maybe go through that experience with other humans, that initial step can be intimidating. So thank you for bringing that to light.

Dr. Melanie Hecker: 0:21

Totally. Well, I mean, and I think that the years from initial, okay, I think there's a problem to seeking care has gone from 11 to 7. And now some even say as as early as four. So we're seeing a healthy trend in the right direction, but there's still that delay. And so I do believe a large part of that has to do with, well, one, the grieving cycle, the identity portion and process of it. But it takes a lot of courage. And I think that as providers, we need to really respect that. When people come into our medical clinics, whether it be a brick and mortar or online, like it took a level of courage to say, hey, I think I have an issue and I want to start exploring that. And can you compassionately identify what the issue is and tell me what treatment paths I have? I mean, we have a really big responsibility and it's exciting to be able to guide people through that.

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS : 1:12

Now, as it relates to going back to the customer journey, prospective patient visits blue mothhearing.com. They say, you know what, I want to take the step towards better hearing. What does that process look like? I saw the unboxing video on YouTube. I thought that was brilliant. Again, we do live in that digital age. Because Melanie, you're solving a problem where there's, you know, 44 million Americans who have hearing loss on an audiogram, another 26 million Americans that struggle to understand speech in noisy situations. And there's like less than 30,000 hearing care professionals. Is my math about right there?

Dr. Melanie Hecker: 1:53

Yeah. Last time I looked, it was 24,000 in the US. And that's including both hearing instruments specialists and audiologists. But the number of people applying to get into audiology programs is on the decline. So, and the aging population is increasing. So we've got a big math problem here for sure. But as far as the customer journey is concerned, initially they'll schedule a free consultation to meet with one of our providers. And that's really just that initial case history, you know, tell us a little bit about what's going on. We see if they've already had a hearing test completed. If they have, and it's within the last six months, we have them go ahead and submit that to us. And typically we'll ask some questions beforehand. So they won't, if they've already had a hearing test, they'll typically show up to that consultation with it so we can review it with them. If they have not, then we want to start with a hearing test. And what's really amazing is that technology is increasing all the time. And with shoebox audiology, you can do air, bones, speech, speech and noise, which is really significant to be able to test. You can do the autoscopy. All of this can be done with a patient from the convenience of home. So whether they submit their own hearing test or we send them a testing kit to complete that at home, the first step is to have an assessment so we can make a clinical recommendation. From there, we make sure that they are an actual candidate. So if someone has a severe profound and they really need power devices or a cochlear implant evaluation, we make those recommendations to see an audiologist in person for further diagnostic of Val. If somebody has an asymmetry or conductive component, again, we're referring out for medical. So as long as they're, you know, more of your traditional vanilla sensory neural hearing loss that is in that mild, moderate, down to severe, but not much more than that in the high frequencies, then we talk to them about treatment recommendations. And there's two different paths that a patient can choose. Some of them either they really say, okay, doctor, I want you to tell me what you think is best based on your experience and my loss. And then we move forward with an actual device selection. But some want to do our experience box. And that is where we send out three different sets of premium prescription technology that are first fit. So we're very clear with them. This is, you know, about an 85-90% correction. This is going to give you enough of a flavor and essence to be able to tell which of the three you prefer. And from there, we will order the technology and tailor it to your hearing loss. But in that case, we'll send an experience box with three different sets of devices. As you mentioned, we have one of our audiology assistants actually meet with them to do an unboxing to make sure that they feel comfortable with how to pair it to their phone, what apps they might need, different things that they should do to test drive those devices to ensure that the one that they're investing in is the one that's going to give them the most benefit. And so those are kind of the two paths that most people choose.

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS : 4:55

And we always say here on the Hearing Matters podcast, helping patients and professionals make educated hearing health care decisions. As an audiologist and in partnership with your audiology assistants, you're helping these patients make an educated hearing health care decision. You're guiding them, you're walking with them. It's not that power struggle between professional and patient. Yes, you are the professional, but you're taking into account the data that you're collecting from their hearing evaluation. And I love that you're doing speech and noise testing because I am sure time and time again, Dr. Hecker, you've probably heard well, this is a great model for patients. You're increasing access, but what about real ear measurement? And as a hearing care professional, I would say that the professionals who are saying that, I am hoping that those are the individuals that are conducting real ear measurement because only about 15% of hearing care professionals are actually implementing real ear measurement. And it's probably a little less than that.

Dr. Melanie Hecker: 6:02

Yeah. Yeah, but it is really interesting too because sometimes people will say to me, Oh my gosh, I never knew I had other options or other choices. Nothing else was ever shared with me. I don't know if that's actually best. Could I try three and see? It's like, of course you can. And, you know, that the experience box, one of the big reasons why I started that process as well is I was taking my son out for frozen yogurt and he was, you know, trying the little samples before committing. And I'm like, wow, this kid can choose five different samples before committing to a six dollar frozen yogurt. And so rarely do patients even get informed that there are other choices or options. And I know the reasons for that, and I'm not trying to slam it, but it is something that our patients are now becoming more and more aware of. You know, with the access to the internet and the information, they're coming in saying, Oh, I've done a lot of research on this, or I've watched this video on YouTube about this technology. And so I think it's a really great gift for us as a profession to really up-level our awareness, our skills, our ability to educate our patients because they are more educated than in the past. So it's it's an up-leveling that I think has to happen across the board.

Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS : 7:15

I appreciate that approach because putting my former private practice hat on, we were multi-line. Of course, you're you're more well-versed in probably two or three manufacturers versus maybe all five. But I will say, I mean, we had patients, Melanie, who would come in and who would ask about the different brands. And being read up on the different brands and the new technology, it was a very nice conversation. The patients appreciated that. And there were times where my recommendation wasn't in alignment with their discovery phase, if you will, but they trusted me because they said, Oh, okay, you understand the technology, truly, but my fear is that that's not happening too often in the industry today.

Dr. Melanie Hecker: 8:07

I would agree with that. Also, one thing that's really blown my mind, and I can't wait, because at some point, I'm just manifesting it already, at some point in the future, I want to partner with the University of Washington's audiology program to do an assessment of the people that have gone through our experience box. Because, I mean, I've been an audiologist for 15 years. You know, we all kind of say, based on certain lifestyle, subjective things that people report and hearing losses, we're pretty good at saying, oh, I think you're going to be best with X brand, right? Because of XYZ. And we know their fitting philosophies, we know the strengths and weaknesses of each tech. And it has been really shocking to me how often there's some very unique, interesting feature within the device. It's almost like this Goldilocks moment doing the experience box, where they know almost immediately which one of the three they like. I've actually been surprised at how rarely it's the one that I would have thought or guessed. So there is a really interesting subjective component that I think in clinic we're missing right now. So the experience box has been very eye opening to that. So I want to get more information on like what is it that helps choose which of those, and how could we better know as providers to increase satisfaction and retention rates with patients.