Chicago Doctor Invents Affordable Hearing Aid

Outperforms Many Higher Priced Hearing Aids

Reported by J. Page

CHICAGO: A local board-certi�ied Ear, Nose, and Throat (ENT) physician, Dr. S. Cherukuri, has shaken up the hearing aid industry with the invention of a medical-grade, affordable hearing aid. This revolutionary hearing aid is designed to help millions of people with hearing loss who cannot afford—or do not wish to pay—the much higher cost of traditional hearing aids.

“Perhaps the best quality-to-price ratio in the hearing aid industry” – Dr. Babu, Board-Certified ENT Physician

Dr. Cherukuri knew untreated hearing loss could lead to depression, social isolation, anxiety, and symptoms consistent with Alzheimer’s disease. He didn’t know why hearing aids were so expensive when the prices on so many consumer electronics like TVs, DVD players, cell phones, and digital cameras had fallen.

Since Medicare and most private insurance plans do not cover the costs of hearing aids, which can cost between $2,000$6,000 for a pair, many of the doctor’s patients could not afford the expense. Dr. Cherukuri’s goal was to �ind a solution that would help with the most common types of hearing loss at an affordable price, similar to the “one-size-fits-most” reading glasses available at drug stores.

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He evaluated numerous hearing devices and sound ampli�iers, including those seen on television. Without fail, those were found to amplify bass/low frequencies (below 1000 Hz) and were not effective amplifying the frequencies related to the human voice.

Inspiration from a Surprising Source

The doctor’s inspiration to defeat the powers-that-be that kept inexpensive hearing aids out of the hands of the public actually came from a cell phone he had just purchased. “I felt that if someone could develop an affordable device like an iPhone ® for about $200 that could do all sorts of things, I could create a hearing aid at a similar price.”

A ordable Hearing Aid with Superb Performance

The high cost of hearing aids is a result of layers of middlemen and expensive unnecessary features. Dr. Cherukuri concluded that it would be possible to develop a medical-grade hearing aid without sacri�icing the quality of components. The result is the MDHearingAid PRO, well under $200 each when buying a pair. It has been declared to be the best low-cost hearing aid that ampli�ies the range of sounds associated with the human voice without overly amplifying background noise.

Tested by Leading Doctors and Audiologists

The MDHearingAid PRO has been rigorously tested by leading ENT physicians and audiologists who have unanimously agreed that the sound quality and output in many cases exceeds more expensive hearing aids.

DOCTORS AND PATIENTS AGREE: “BEST QUALITY SOUND”

“LOWEST AFFORDABLE PRICE”

“I have been wearing hearing aids for over 25 years and these are the best Behind-the-Ear aids I have tried. Their sound quality rivals that of my $3,000 custom pair of Phonak ® Xtra digital ITE.” —Gerald L.

“I have a $2,000 ReSound ® Live hearing aid in my left ear and the MDHearingAid® PRO in my right ear. I am not able to notice a significant difference in sound quality between the two hearing aids.”

—Dr. May, ENT physician

“They work so great, my mother says she hasn’t heard this well in years, even with her $2,000 digital! It was so great to see the joy on her face. She is 90 years young again.” —Al P.

Full is in the running with 49 other communities for the Georgetown University Energy Prize of $5 million to be awarded next year, and the U.S. Department of Energy has named the city a Climate Action Champion, giving it an edge for certain federal programs.

All of which is encouraging, but Montpelier is just at the starting line. Shea says that the city aims to be halfway to net zero by 2023. Transportation is the high hurdle; it’s nearly 50 percent of energy use. Shea and Baker talk up rezoning to lessen reliance on downtown parking, adding bike lanes, and encouraging car sharing and public transportation. “You can eliminate parking if more people are biking and walking,” Shea explains.

“Have you said that in a public meeting: eliminate parking?” I ask. Having served on a planning committee, I know that parking spots can be revered as holy land.

Shea, who drives an electric car, doesn’t hesitate. Look at the city map, he says: “It’s amazing how much real estate” is devoured by parking. That’s land that could be used for taxable development and for housing.

As we were sitting there, gas was at $2.35 a gallon in the city, bringing on a winner’s smugness as people filled up. You have to approach some collapseof-civilization scenario before you can imagine prying Americans out of their cars—and Vermonters drive more miles each year than most other Americans. (They rank sixth on the mileage list.) Shea concedes that the low price “makes the paybacks harder,” but he’s steadfast, talking about finding the right mix of “carrot-and-stick” programs to move the stubborn-mule public.

Montpelier was able to add its solar panels and biomass boiler without expending any of the city’s tax dollars. But to achieve the committee members’ goal, won’t they eventually have to spend the city’s money? They firmly say no. Montpelier has a high tax rate, Baker explains, with a population of about 7,800 having to provide services for up to 20,000 each day. She hears from residents who are concerned about “how to balance this audacious goal against the financial realities of our municipal budget,” she says. A good case can be made for the long-term benefits, but she knows that “there’s some fear in the short term” about taxes.

To get to net zero, Shea says, “a lot of this basically comes down to behavioral marketing.” There’s strong support from Mayor John Hollar and a core of committed citizens. “We just need to keep pushing that 80 percent in the middle to help us get there.” Montpelier could be a demonstration project for Los Angeles or Seattle or Chicago, he adds: “Now, they’ve got their own things going, but with a lot of what we’re doing for a northern climate, we can really become the pilot poster child for—this might be a little grandiose—a national movement.” Other places large and small can learn from what people are doing in Mont pelier, he says.

Striving to be a net-zero city appeals to old New England virtues: It’s pragmatic, it’s thrifty, it’s the right thing to do, and it plays to the region’s pride in independent thinking. “Resiliency” is the buzzword of this new energy movement, and in that word is an echo of another old New England virtue: selfreliance. “Our residents have this culture of being innovative, being progressive, being willing to try things,” Baker says. “The size of our community lets us perhaps do some ambitious things a little more easily. We know each other. We go to church together. We go to soccer practice together. And it kind of contributes to that Vermont way of doing things.”

Will this work? Can we patch together enough solar panels, efficient lighting, and generators to tame our energy hunger? Can we do enough quickly enough to slow the planet’s warming? That’s what this is really about. We’re on a roller-coaster ride of ever-wilder storms and hotter summers. My short yimby tour is encouraging, showing how we can swiftly change things, but I may be cheering a short parade.

When you see these new ways of doing things, it’s freeing. It’s as if you were hearing long-stuck machinery moving. But then you leave these new projects and head into the gas-and-go haste of how we’ve done things forever, and the fossil-fuel present seems ironbound and eternal, “ a fate … that never turns aside,” as Thoreau said of the technology of his day.

What’s holding us back isn’t technology, and not even the old regulations, though those have to change. What’s holding us back is that we don’t believe we can change things. In a region once renowned for its mechanical literacy— for backyard tinkerers filing a flood of patents for improved water turbines, steam engines, early automobiles and airplanes—somehow we’ve lost our belief in Yankee ingenuity. Of course there still are many can-do inventors, designers, and builders among us, but, lacking mil- lions of dollars for advertising and lobbying, they can be lost in the noise.

I have one more stop to make before I leave Vermont. I drive a half-hour south of the capital to visit someone who has been at this solar thing since he was an architecture student in 1970. I go see architect William Maclay at his Waitsfield office. Recently he wrote the definitive book, The New Net Zero, a hefty 552pager giving many successful examples and extensive construction details for houses and large commercial buildings.

“We’re not in the world we were in 10 years ago,” Maclay tells me. “For me, an advocate for doing solar for 40-someodd years, to say that I can live on less money with solar than I can with fossil fuels is just a radical change. And it’s a radical change that 2 percent of the population realizes.” People don’t know that they can afford solar, that they can afford net zero, he explains.

He sets out the numbers: For solar panels there’s a 30 percent rebate off the top from federal tax credits; historically low loan rates; and plummeting solarpanel prices, which are 75 percent lower than they were a decade ago. It’s cheaper to install solar than to keep paying for oil, Maclay says: “Renewably powering your electric bill is cost-effective today. That’s just huge. It’s never been that way before. You can hop onboard and save money and do the right thing at the same time. Climate’s an issue; there’s no excuse not to be addressing that. [This] isn’t some weird technology we have to wait for. It’s here today.” This isn’t your hippie uncle’s solar energy.

“Will Montpelier succeed?” I ask.

“I think they’re going to get there, and everybody’s going to get there, or we’re not going to be around,” Maclay replies. And with that we adjourn to look at the small tan boxes outside his office and an adjoining house (heat pumps) and the gray boxes in the basement (a solar-power inverter). They’re not much to look at, either, but they may mean the world.

We want to hear your views on New England’s energy needs—both the challenges and the potential solutions. Write us at: editors@yankeepub.com

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