You're Not Alone
This edition is about the ecosystem that makes getting help possible: the family member who shows up to the audiologist appointment, the employer who turns on captions before anyone has to ask, the 35-year-old country star who posts a photo of his two hearing aids and rewrites the narrative.
Getting help with hearing loss is becoming easier than ever. Getting the people and systems around you aligned - is what makes it last.
My name is Mark Parkinson and I am Co-founder of hearUcan. I wore hearing aids for 12 years and now have bi-lateral cochlear implants. I founded the hearUcan comminity to help those with hearing loss navigate what can be a very confusing and frustrating journey. Family members, friends, work colleagues, and the stranger at the cash register - they’re all on this journey with you.
Let’s get started……
🩺 Get More From Your Next Audiology Appointment
Most people spend more time preparing for a car purchase than a hearing test. Here's what the research says actually changes outcomes:
Before you go:
Keep a 2-week "hearing journal" — specific situations where you struggled, not just "I can't hear well." Concrete examples give an audiologist something to work with.
Bring someone who knows how you hear day-to-day. They notice things you've normalized. Patients who bring a companion have measurably better fitting outcomes.
Check your insurance coverage in advance and bring a list of your medications — several affect hearing.
In the appointment, ask for these by name:
Real Ear Measurement (REM): The gold-standard verification that your hearing aids are actually programmed to your audiogram. Many clinics skip it. Most patients don't know to ask. Ask.
Auditory rehabilitation counseling: Communication strategy training that doubles the measured benefit of hearing aids. Almost never proactively offered. Ask if it's available.
After the fitting:
The 6–12 week follow-up is the most skipped and most important appointment in the process. Skipping it is the single top predictor of hearing aid abandonment.
Your hearing aid's companion app almost certainly has a remote audiologist adjustment feature you've never activated. All major brands (Phonak, Oticon, Signia, Widex, Starkey) support remote programming — adjustments you'd otherwise need to drive in for.
If your aids feel underwhelming, optimize before you replace. Most underperformance is a programming issue, not a device issue.
Our take: Own your journey. You are the client, not just the patient. Demand more of your audiologist, BUT you must lean in and be open to advice, best practices and a commitment to success.
👨👩👧 Say It Differently, Not Louder
People with sensorineural hearing loss — the most common type — often hear volume but not clarity.
Rephrasing uses different phonemes, giving a better shot at comprehension. "Do you want spaghetti?" → "What should we have for dinner?" This is the single most evidence-backed communication tip in the family research.
A few others that consistently hold up:
Get attention first. Name, wave, eye contact — then speak. Never shout from another room.
Announce the topic first. "About the weekend plans..." — context fills in sounds that were missed.
Never say "never mind." Research consistently links this phrase to withdrawal and depression in people with hearing loss. Rephrase instead.
Make captions the default on every screen — not just "when grandpa visits." Normalized accommodation removes the stigma of needing it.
The harder finding: Hearing loss severity doesn't predict spousal burden. Relationship quality does.
An RCT published in the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology found that spouses who attended audiology rehabilitation sessions had significantly better communication outcomes than those who didn't. Bring your partner to the appointment — it's not just supportive, it's clinically effective.
Our take: We all need a co-pilot. Whether it is a spouse, brother, sister, parent, child, friend, or colleague, bring them along. If they are willing, make them a part of your hearing journey
📊 For the First Time, More Than Half of People With Hearing Loss Own Hearing Technology
MarkeTrak 2025 delivered a landmark datapoint: 51.3% of Americans with self-reported hearing difficulty now own some form of hearing technology — the first time that's ever cleared 50% in the survey's 36-year history.
The drivers are more interesting than the headline:
Prescription hearing aids: 39.1% adoption (up from 30.2% in 2015)
OTC hearing aids: ~6% — adds about 4 percentage points net
Hearing-enhanced earbuds: ~21% — the surprise, adding 8 more points
OTC hearing aids, three years into FDA authorization, are doing exactly what they were designed to do — but modestly. They're reaching a genuinely different buyer: younger (49% are working-age vs. 24% for prescription), more cost-sensitive ($150 median vs. $1,560), and more likely to be first-timers.
The most important OTC finding isn't the adoption number — it's this: nearly 60% of OTC buyers who skipped professional guidance said, in retrospect, it would have been beneficial. The device helped. The professional relationship would have helped more.
The time-to-care gap is slowly closing. The average time from first noticing a problem to visiting a hearing care professional dropped from 4 years to 3 years since MT2022. Still too long — but moving.
🇫🇷 France, which enacted zero-out-of-pocket hearing aid coverage in 2021 and just just hit 55% adoption — with 97% of users reporting quality-of-life improvement.
Our take: If we remove the financial barrier, people act. Nearly 1 in 3 Americans who were recommended hearing aids by a professional haven't acted — and the primary reason is cost and lack of coverage.
🎧 The New Face of Hearing Aids
Thomas Rhett is 35, wears two hearing aids, and posted about it in February 2026. His audience — young, male, country music fans — is not a traditional demographic for hearing health.
Caroline Lusk, 23, disclosed significant-to-profound hearing loss to her 2 million TikTok followers in March 2026. The response was not pity. It was recognition.
A late-2025 industry analysis called it "The Great Hearing Aid Reversal": Gen Z doesn't want invisible hearing aids. They want visible ones — bold, fashion-forward, worn like identity objects, the same way they wear oversized headphones. This is a 180-degree shift from every prior generation's first preference.
The product side is catching up fast:
Sony CRE-C20 ($699): Virtually invisible in-canal design; looks like a premium earbud; IP6X/IPX8-rated
HP Hearing PRO (~$799): True earbud form factor with a charging case; first dual-FDA-cleared OTC device
ELEHEAR Delight (~$350): AirPods aesthetic; real-time AI translation in 20 languages; Bluetooth 5.3
Oticon Zeal: For those who still want invisible — the first prescription-grade complete-in-canal hearing aid with rechargeable batteries, 2nd-gen AI, and Auracast
Overtone: This UK startup is developing unabashedly fashion forward and relevant hearing devices. Subtle, but definitely not hidden.
GN's "The New Norm" campaign released a royalty-free image bank of real, modern, diverse hearing aid wearers to replace outdated stock photos that have perpetuated an "elderly and defeated" visual narrative for decades. The images are free to use and specifically designed to change the upstream media pipeline.
Our take: The stigma isn't gone. But there are now real products, real people, and a documented generational shift pushing against it.