Oct. 24, 2023

Two longtime audiologists have come together to create a private practice.

High Tone Hearing LLC opened recently at 4904 E. Rosa Parks Place, near Rosa Parks Elementary on the east side of Sioux Falls.

It’s co-owned by Sarah Johnson and Lori Miller, who have more than 30 years of combined experience.

“Together, we felt we could provide needed services in a best-practice manner that aligned with our similar philosophies of care,” Miller said, adding that the market lacked auditory processing evaluations and treatment.

“Our practice goal, in relation to more common services in the area, is to always provide best practices and comprehensive communication-needs assessments,” she said. “We feel with our combined 30-plus years of experience, we will be able to provide transparent care in a slightly different medical model, with patients in control of their own hearing health care.”

High Tone Hearing offers pediatric and adult diagnostics, hearing aids, newborn hearing screenings, auditory processing evaluations and treatment, cerumen removal, custom hearing protection and educational audiology services.

“We see our medical model as being on the cusp of a changing landscape in health care,” Miller said.

“We are independent providers that will be able to control expenses passed onto our patients and allows us to be in control of a patient’s hearing health care plan outside of their constraints in place by their insurance provider. We will be a private-pay clinic, with transparent pricing.”

Many audiology service are not covered by insurance, or even if they are, they often still result in a patient owing for service provided, she said.

“In our model, patients will have upfront knowledge of their expenses/services at our office prior to their appointment and will also see an unbundled service plan for hearing aids that allows the patient to see straightforward pricing for all services provided,” she said.

“This change in private pay follows many other clinics in town that you can see as part of this changing landscape. Those include Empower U, Move U, Britt Haus and an audiology clinic such as ours. We believe we are the forefront of changes that will likely come as health care services and insurance continue to change. Patients and their providers should be in control of their medical plan, not their insurance company.”

Both partners live on the east side of Sioux Falls, which supported their decision to locate there, Miller said.

“We feel this is an area that is rapidly growing and being a part of the development of Dawley Farms allows us to collaborate with other medical professionals in the near area: Avera, Radiant Health, Origin Health, Flourish. We will be highly visible and close to surrounding areas like Brandon and Harrisburg that may also be seeking our services.”