NuSound Hearing Center: Hear Here

Photos by: John Burns

Over 30 million Americans suffer from some sort of hearing loss. Most people live with this loss of hearing for seven years before doing anything about it. This is mostly because health insurance usually does not cover the cost of a hearing device and they can be very expensive.

Historically, hearing aid businesses operated with the primary goal of selling devices to help people hear better but not dealing with the other problems that come with hearing loss.

Belinda Gonzales-Allan, hearing instrument specialist and owner of NuSound Hearing Center, is committed to easing the anxiety associated with hearing loss by providing service that focuses on the whole person, not just their ears.

Gonzales-Allan didn’t set out with the career goal of being a hearing instrument specialist. In fact, she didn’t even know what that was until she attended a Baby Boomer Expo while working as a sales executive for Country Legends 106.9.

During the event, Gonzales-Allan was tasked with assisting the businesses that had reserved booths at the expo. Out of the blue, a local businessman approached her and asked if she would be interested in joining his team and learning the trade of assisting those in need of hearing devices.

Intrigued by the idea, Gonzales-Allan accepted his invitation, thus launching her on a career path she never expected. With the help of mentors in the hearing device industry, Gonzales-Allan earned a state license to be a Hearing Instrument Specialist. After working several years for someone else, Gonzales-Allan decided in 2011 it was time to start her own business and opened NuSound Hearing Center located at 5950 SW 28th St.

“I had a real yearning to do it differently,” Gonzales-Allan said. “I believe no matter how much money you put into a hearing device, it can only be of help to you if you have the correct follow up care.”

FAMILY MATTERS

NuSound Hearing Center is a family-owned business and Gonzales-Allan considers each of her patients as family themselves.

“That’s what makes us different, we like to be involved with the families,” Gonzales-Allan said. “That small device that we are putting in their ear, that they wrote a check for, or saved up so long for, is helping connect them to their spouse and to their kids and to the cashier at McDonald’s. I just makes life brighter and that is joyful. It’s what gets me up in the morning.”

The care at NuSound Hearing Center does not end with the one-time purchase of a hearing device, Gonzales-Allan’s staff goes out of their way to make sure that their patients have continued care, with yearly checkups to assure that their hearing devices continue to work correctly.

“We retest patients every year. Just like you get your eyes tested every year to see if you need a new prescription. I want to make sure patient’s devices have the right program or prescription downloaded in them. There are lots of people walking around with hearing devices that haven’t been retested in years, so they are not programmed as best they could be, and that makes me sad,” Gonzales-Allan said.

When NuSound conducts a hearing test, those results are sent to the patient’s primary care physician because, according to Gonzales-Allan, hearing loss is often related to other health issues.

“Hearing is about more than your ears. Working with your primary care physician helps monitor how your overall health and hearing systems are working together,” Gonzales-Allan said.

SERVING MATTERS

Since Gonzales-Allan had to build her patient base from scratch and relies heavily on continued marketing, when the pandemic hit, her business was greatly affected.

“When I opened the business, I fully expected the first couple of years to be extremely difficult financially, but the most difficult times were these past two years. The pandemic just absolutely swept everything out from underneath us,” Gonzales-Allan said. “The way we marketed at home shows, farm shows, and garden shows just completely stopped because when you couldn’t have more than groups of 10 together, they just canceled everything. On top of that, they were telling everyone over the age of 65 to stay at home. It literally just crushed us.”

Prior to the pandemic, NuSound Hearing Center had locations in Topeka, Holton and Wamego. While circumstances. forced Gonzales-Allan to shut down the Wamego location, business is starting to pick up again and she feels good about the future.

“It’s going to take us a while to get back to where we were, but it’s coming back. A lot of patients are finally at the point where they have accepted this [pandemic] is just something that we are all going to have to live with, so they might as well go live their lives. The phones are ringing now, and our events are back on,” Gonzales-Allan said.

Every year NuSound Hearing Center held a patient appreciation banquet with entertainment, games and prizes for all to enjoy. After two years of not being able to have this celebration, NuSound Hearing Center is excited to finally be able to celebrate with patients once again.

The yearly banquet isn’t the only way NuSound gives back. They also work to improve lives not only in the local community but also around the world through partnerships with Starkey Hearing Foundation and Military Veteran Project.

“We give free hearing aids away every year and donate money to a global foundation that provides hearing aids to third world countries,” said Gonzales-Allan. “Many veterans experience hearing-related injuries while serving. To thank them for their selfless sacrifice for our country, we offer veteran discounts to not only service men and women but to their spouses or significant others as well.”

HEARING MATTERS

Gonzales-Allan recommends everyone over the age of 40 get their hearing checked on a yearly basis. Even if they aren’t experiencing hearing problems, it sets a baseline for future testing.

“With hearing loss, so much depends on how quickly you address it,” Gonzales-Allan said. “Our brains can actually forget how to process certain sounds of speech if it goes long enough without the signal.”

Truly a family business, all three of Gonzales-Allan’s adult children work at NuSound Hearing Center, including her son, Dr. Bryne Gonzales, Doctor of Audiology. The Topeka location is open five days a week, open late on Thursdays and one Saturday a month. The Holton location at 115 W 4th St. sees patients on Mondays and Thursdays. Gonzales-Allan is considering expanding farther North to make it convenient for more people to find the help they need.

“People don’t have to feel anxious or scared or even old because they need hearing aids anymore. The technology has changed, and facilities like NuSound have changed the approach to helping with hearing loss,” Gonzales-Allan said. “If you want to hear better, make an appointment and start feeling like you are a part of your life again!”