Sonic Innovations Official Hearing Aid of the VA

Salt Lake City — Sonic Innovations has announced it has been selected to supply hearing aids to the U.S. Dept. of Veterans Affairs (VA) beginning Nov. 1. According to industry data from the Hearing Industry Association, the VA represents approximately 18% of the market for hearing aids and experienced unit growth of more than 29% for the three months ended June 30, 2009, compared to the same period of 2008.

In response to the contract award, Sonic Innovations CEO Sam Westover said, “Winning the VA contract is a significant opportunity for Sonic. It allows us to provide hearing care to the single largest purchaser of hearing aids in North America.” According to contract documents, the VA anticipates purchasing from the qualified suppliers approximately 430,000 hearing aids in first year of the contract, with steady growth in volume over the following four years.

Westover indicated this award was particularly gratifying because it provided Sonic another opportunity to support the men and women of the military. “As a U.S. company, we are excited to be able to provide our technologically advanced hearing aids to our U.S. veterans. Hearing damage is the leading disability being faced by our returning veterans, and we are looking forward to the opportunity to serve them,” Westover said.

Sonic submitted its proposal to the VA in response to a request for proposal issued earlier this year. Sonic was successful in receiving an award in each of the categories in which it bid, allowing it to sell its custom, BTE and RIC products through the VA. The contract award from the VA is a one-year contract with four one-year extension options. Sonic anticipates participating on the contract for the entire five years.

AT&T Premieres Real Time IM Relay for Customers With Hearing and Speech Loss

DALLAS, Sept. 28 --For people with hearing and speech loss, communicating with callers who can speak and hear just went real time, thanks to AT&T and AOL's AIM instant messaging service. Customers using AT&T IM Relay services now have a new, faster feature at their fingertips: AT&T Real Time IM. AT&T is the first and only provider to offer the new real time feature -- offering more than 31 million people with hearing and speech loss, nationwide, a more immediate way to communicate with standard telephone users.

Users log in to a specialized AIM interface that works with an Internet connection on a PC and on many wireless devices. A specially-trained relay operator reads IMs to hearing callers and types IMs which are displayed -- in real time -- to the end user. The new service is offered at no additional charge to customers who register with AT&T Relay Services.

With the new real time IM feature, instead of waiting for the relay operator to type a full phrase or sentence, IM users can see the text messages they are receiving, word-by-word as they are typed -- making conversations feel more like calls experienced by hearing customers.

"To hearing users, this may sound like a trivial enhancement," said Claude Stout, Executive Director, TDI. "But for many callers with hearing or speech disabilities, this creates a wireless and online communications experience that is much closer to what hearing people encounter when talking with others on the phone. TDI applauds such collaboration between industry players that results in greater functional equivalency for deaf and hard of hearing consumers."

Hearing Loss Leads to Lower Income

Sonic Innovations, Salt Lake City, reports that Americans who ignore a hearing loss are also losing income, according to a statement released by the company.

A study from the Better Hearing Institute (BHI), a nonprofit corporation that educates the public about the neglected problem of hearing loss and what can be done about it, provides the numbers, says Sonic:

$100 Billion Lost in Earnings Each Year:

Average annual amount of income lost by American working people who don't get hearing aids ranges from $1,000 (those with mild hearing loss) to $12,000 (those with profound hearing loss).
BHI survey states that getting hearing aids at a younger age reduces the chance of losing income. Only one out of four Americans with hearing problems is getting treatment.
Michael Nilsson, Sonic's VP of auditory research, says in the statement that people who ignore hearing loss and refuse to admit they need a hearing aid are passing up a tool that will boost their self-esteem, help reduce anxiety, and increase their income.

He says further that in today's economy, the thought of affording new digital aids—which can cost between $1,000 and $4,000 each—may be discouraging. However, since the average life of today's hearing aids is 3 to 5 years, the device cost averages about $3 a day, he adds.

Sonic designs new hearing devices with patented hearing aid technology to significantly advance sound quality and performance, says the statement. The company's products include Sonic Touch, a small receiver-in-the-canal product; the Velocity line of hearing aids, a small, fully functional behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aid; ; and the ion line, a small thin tube BTE device.

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