Nice to meet you too, Denise!

Great question! No, the bone-anchored technologies are different from cochlear implants. That being said, it does get confusing because the brand of many bone-anchored devices is Cochlear and the devices are implants, but they're not cochlear implants.

To my understanding, cochlear implants bypass all of the ear and link directly to the auditory nerve; whereas, bone-anchored hearing devices bypass the middle and outer ear, but create vibrations that the inner ear picks up or "hears." Some popular types of bone-anchored devices are Cochlear's Baha (several versions), Cochlear's Osia, which I have, and Medel's Bonebridge.

I'm deaf in one ear and have moderate hearing loss in the other. I could have gotten/could get a cochlear implant on my deaf side, but I opted to just improve my existing hearing by getting the Osia on the side with moderate hearing loss.

The sound processor portion of the device (the external part) attaches to my head via a magnet (sounds strange, but it's completely comfortable and feels comparable to wearing a barrette) and has microphones on it. These microphones receive sound and send an electronic signal to the implanted portion of the device (under my scalp), which is attached to my skull (again, sounds strange, but is really cool), and causes the transducer portion of the device (under my scalp) to vibrate against my skull. The inner ear picks up these vibrations and allows you to hear. The sound is very natural and indistinguishable from what your ear is picking up itself.

I encourage you to check it out! It's an out-patient surgery that generally takes 1.5 hours, though mine took 3 hours for some reason :). Pics of my device are shown below (showing and behind my hair).