Corrine Perritano is not in the business of selling hearing aids. She’s on a mission to help people hear better.
That vision is shared by her employer, Beltone, a Glenview, Ilinois-based company that has used the latest technology to develop award-winning hearing solutions for more than seventy-eight years. Perritano is president of Beltone’s North American division and works extensively with the marketing department to ensure that the company’s message reaches as many potential future users at it can.
Beltone’s team hopes to educate people about hearing health and how the company can help people not only when hearing loss develops, but also before the loss starts to occur. Perritano works with Beltone’s network practices to ensure they are getting all the support they need to be successful. “Ultimately, the number one mission is to help people hear better,” Perritano says. “That means getting the message out about what we can do and then ensuring when someone does come to a Beltone office that they have the best possible technology, training, and services available to meet their individual needs.”
One reason Perritano is passionate about Beltone’s mission is that she watched her father cope with hearing loss. She was not in the hearing aid industry at the time, but now that she is, Perritano witnesses firsthand how Beltone’s technology can change someone’s life. She believes it would have made a major impact on her father, who did not address his hearing loss and ended up with dementia later in life—a condition that Perritano believes was brought on because he began to disengage from social activities because of his hearing loss.
“It’s not just hearing,” she says. “There are other impacts of hearing loss that we can actually fix. I love the fact that we are part of something so noble and something that can make a difference in so many lives.”
Beltone Trust is the company’s latest difference-maker. The hearing aid’s groundbreaking, cross-directional functionality, enables people to hear in a truly natural way. When a Trust user hears a sound, they can determine the direction from which it’s coming, whether that’s from the left, right, front, or even behind the user.
Beltone Trust settings can be adjusted through a mobile application called HearMax, where users can fine-tune their settings remotely. If a user is having difficulty with their hearing aid, then they can go into the app, note that they are having trouble, and their practitioner can make the necessary adjustments from wherever they are. Trust users can have adjustments made proactively, too. If they are going to be somewhere noisy, such as a birthday party or concert, but won’t be able to make it to an office beforehand, their practitioner can make the necessary adjustments ahead of time.
The technology launched in May 2017, and customer feedback has been positive, according to Perritano. “Patients who have been wearing hearing aids for years put this on, and they can’t get over the ability to hear in a crowd or detect sounds around them,” she says. “It’s not just noise amplification. It’s true natural sound, where they feel safe and confident that they aren’t missing out on any part of the conversation. They don’t have to be looking at someone in order to hear them.”
Beltone’s new marketing campaign features Beltone heroes—everyday people who rely on the Trust technology in order to save lives. One ad focuses on a police officer whose hearing aids allow him to hear a woman being attacked in an alley and come to her rescue, while another focuses on a respiratory nurse who must be able to hear and answer her beeper at a moment’s notice. Another Beltone hero ran in the Boston Marathon. The Beltone technology let her feel comfortable to train without worrying about approaching cars that she couldn’t see or being knocked over if someone came from behind her.
“We are using these heroes to spread the word, share their stories, and tell people that they shouldn’t be embarrassed to use a hearing device. They can take control and live the life they want,” Perritano explains.
Beltone products can make a significant difference even for patients with hearing loss that they’ve written off as a normal part of aging. “People have felt they could live with a little hearing loss, but right now there’s no reason to,” Perritano says. “I have always felt we should challenge ourselves to be all that we can. I feel proud to work with a team that for seventy-eight years has been out there doing that. Our brand helps others and supports that mission with a wealth of research and development to make sure we’re coupling that service with the
best technology.”
As the company continues to develop more groundbreaking technology such as the Trust hearing aid, Beltone will continue helping patients live the lives they want for decades to come—and beyond.
Editor’s note: At time of publication, Corrine Perritano was no longer with Beltone.
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