No. You can make an appointment to see us without a medical referral. However, there are restrictions on certain assistance from the government, such as bulk billing, which requires us to have received a medical referral from your doctor before the hearing assessment. Contact our administration team, who will be able to explain precisely what you need to do in these cases.

• Otoscopy: a visual examination of your ear canals and eardrums, to assess the condition of the outer ears.
• Tympanometry: a painless test of your ears’ ability to hold pressure, to assess the condition of your middle ears.
• Puretone audiometry: a hearing test to determine how loud a particular pitch or frequency has to be, before it is audible.
• Speech discrimination: a hearing test to determine whether your central auditory nerves are transmitting sound correctly to the primary auditory cortex, the part of the brain which deals with sound.
• Discussion: our audiological team will carefully explain your results, so you can understand exactly what, if anything, is wrong with your hearing.
• Recommendations: based on the results and your understanding of your condition, our team will present options to treat your hearing problem. This may range from therapy and auditory training, to medical intervention which will treat underlying causes of hearing loss, to a custom solution from the wide range of modern hearing devices we offer. There is no pressure or obligation at this stage; rather, honest advice on the variety of hearing options available for you to choose.

An audiogram is a graph which measures the softest audible volume you can hear a particular pitch or frequency. This is recorded in decibels, or volume (vertical axis), versus hertz and kilohertz, or low to high pitch (horizontal axis). It plots the progression of hearing ability – often, people with hearing loss can hear better at lower frequencies than higher frequencies, although this can be quite different for a person suffering from, for example, Ménière’s disease, who may experience loss in the lower frequencies while retaining near normal hearing in the higher frequencies.

Hearing devices all include similar components, such as a microphone to pick up sound, an amplifier to make parts of the sound louder, a receiver to deliver the amplified sound to the ear and an on/off switch to power the device. However, there are a wide range of hearing devices in terms of style, features and functions. Please refer to our pages detailing available styles , and the features offered by different classes of hearing devices.

The hearing device which best suits you will depend on your listening needs, type of hearing loss, budget and lifestyle. Our audiological team can help you make the right decision – one which leaves you happy with your hearing.

The answer to this will depend on a number of factors, such as:

• Which devices are suitable for your hearing needs?
• Are you an eligible pensioner or veteran?
• Are you selecting an Hearing Services Program approved hearing aid, or a ‘top-up’ model?
• Do you have health insurance which offers rebates on hearing devices?

All hearing losses are different, and each client’s needs are also different. Therefore, hearing devices require some initial fine-tuning to best match your individual hearing and listening requirements. These adjustments are performed by our audiological team at Advanced Hearing, and are included as part of your hearing device package, which also includes hearing therapy and an aural rehabilitation program.

Begin your training program in familiar surroundings, such as in your own home. After you have read the operating instructions carefully and have familiarised yourself with your hearing devices, put them on and start a simple face-to-face conversation with someone you talk to regularly. Add to the complexity of your surroundings in stages (having a low noise in the background, or speaking with someone whose face is turned away), although very noisy environments should be avoided for the time being.

We can carry out minor repairs and cleaning at our Surrey Hills Head Office while you wait, or you can drop the devices off and pick them up at your convenience. We can also arrange more complicated repairs via the manufacturer of you hearing devices

This includes informational counselling, preparing the hearing aid user with what to expect and how to react to his/ her new hearing environment. It also involves fine tuning the hearing aid and adjusting the adaptation to suit and meet the client’s needs over a period of time. (We call this fitting the hearing aids with training wheels, and then taking those training wheels off over a period of time.) Some of our patients also need specific training which we call auditory training. This can be done formally via a LACE program, or informally and conditioned to the client’s needs.