You are right on the money! Congrats to Oregon for their work in this area. Yes, Wisconsin is a leader, but that is because HLAA has been active in Wisconsin since 1984, when the organization was still called Self Help for Hard of Hearing People (SHHH). We built our first hearing loop out of Radio Shack parts and used it for chapter meetings for years. We spent decades educating people and begging the hearing healthcare industry to buy into this technology. We still have trouble getting audiologists on board.

It's so upsetting to have new people attend our looped chapter meetings, only to discover their new $6000 hearing aids don't have telecoils. Further, they don't have a clue what telecoils even are. We keep a few receivers available so they can take off those expensive hearing aids and don Radio Shack headphones that plug into the receivers. People who sell hearing aids should be explaining this to their patients. At the very least those who buy hearing aids should know what they are trading off if they choose not to have them.