Hi Pam .....
Sorry if I seem to always chime in on your questions, but I was in an even worse situation than you. I live in a low populated state. No one in my state has to date been trained by Oticon Medical to program the Ponto Pro bone-anchored hearing devices. I knew this before I made arrangements to have the abutment implanted at the time of my AN surgery. I contacted Oticon Medical and found out that there are two medical centers who have trained audiologists within three hours drive from where I live.
I chose one of them and my audiologist there is a dream!! I made a total of three trips to see her ..... the initial programming and two more for fine-tuning after I had used it more extensively in different types of situations. This, of course, is not ideal if you happen to have a lot of problems with satisfactory programming or issues. I cannot say for anyone else, but I have had absolutely zero problems with mine and am very happy with the level of hearing I have with it.
I think there are two important things to remember: 1) choosing a quality product with a good track record 2) choosing an experienced and highly educated audiologist, no matter where she (or he) is located.
Clarice
