Doc Talk by MedAudPro

About Doc Talk by MedAudPro

A place where providers in ENT chat it up. Its hard to stay on top of all the specialties in a multi-specialty environment. We like to pick a topic, find the experts and deliver a heavy-hitting, short-format series that allows our listeners to dive in and get up to speed quickly. Our provider community is smart, busy and collaborative. You don't have to be an otolaryngologist or audiologist to hang out here - our community is full of medical providers of all types - the broader the perspective - often the better the care.

Publisher

Network of Medical Audiology Professionals

Category

health & fitness

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

28 Mar 2021

Latest episode

25 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

50 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   25 Aug 2026

   Taking the Lead: Access, Advocacy, and What’s Next for ACI Alliance

   Closing the Gap in Cochlear Implant Access Cochlear implant technology is better than ever, candidacy is expanding, and awareness is growing. So why are so many potential candidates still not reaching a cochlear implant evaluation? In this episode, we sit down with Carrie Spangler, AuD, Executive Director of the American Cochlear Implant Alliance, to talk about where the field is making progress, where access still breaks down, and what providers can do differently. Dr. Spangler brings a unique perspective to the role. She spent decades as an educational audiologist, was born with bilateral hearing loss, received her first cochlear implant in 2019, and became a bilateral recipient in 2025. Today, she leads ACI Alliance at a time when referral, reimbursement, awareness, advocacy, and patient expectations are all changing. What You'll Hear: Why Better Technology Isn’t Enough: The biggest opportunity may not be the device itself, but the systems that help patients understand, access, and move through cochlear implant care. The Awareness Problem: Why many patients still do not understand what a cochlear implant is, who may qualify, or when they should start asking questions. Making Referral Easier: How tools such as the 60/60 guideline can help community audiologists and hearing healthcare providers recognize when it may be time to refer. What Policy Has to Do With Patient Care: Why Medicare, Medicaid, insurance coverage, and reimbursement decisions directly affect what happens in the clinic. New Tools for Providers: A look at ACI Alliance resources, including a Medicaid toolkit designed to help clinicians and families navigate coverage and access. Building Better Referral Relationships: Why cochlear implant programs may need to reach outward to community audiologists, ENT practices, and other providers instead of simply waiting for patients to arrive. What Patients Are Really Worried About: Surgery, outcomes, technology, cost, and uncertainty can all influence whether someone moves forward, even when they may be a strong candidate. A Clinician and a CI Recipient: How Dr. Spangler’s own cochlear implant journey shapes the way she thinks about advocacy, counseling, continuity of care, and the importance of community. The takeaway is simple: expanding cochlear implant candidacy does not automatically expand cochlear implant access. Patients still need someone to recognize the possibility, start the conversation, answer enough questions to reduce uncertainty, and help them take the next step. For providers outside of a cochlear implant center, that may be one of the biggest opportunities to improve care. Who should listen? Audiologists, otologists, neurotologists, cochlear implant teams, ENT providers, hearing healthcare professionals, clinic leaders, educators, students, advocates, and anyone interested in improving cochlear implant awareness, referral, and access. Stay up to date with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram @MedAudPro. Want to learn more about FCOM? https://FCOMnow.com (https://fcomnow.com/) Join the MedAudPro Provider Community: https://medaudpro.com/register (https://medaudpro.com/register)

2. 

   18 Aug 2026

   Disrupt or Be Disrupted: AI, Automation, and the Next Decade of Hearing Care

   Artificial intelligence is already influencing hearing healthcare, but the biggest changes may have less to do with replacing clinicians and more to do with how patients move through the system, how data is used, and how care teams make decisions. Meet Devin McCaslin, PhD, Clinical Director of Communication Sciences and Disorders at Michigan Medicine and a professor in Otolaryngology and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Michigan. His work sits at the intersection of audiology, vestibular care, engineering, and artificial intelligence. He and his collaborators are developing AI-supported approaches to triage, data integration, clinical decision support, and the future design of hearing healthcare. What You'll Hear: What AI Can Actually Do Today: Where artificial intelligence is already being used in healthcare, including triage, workflow efficiency, decision support, and reducing variability in how patients move through complex systems. From Models to AI Agents: Why the next step goes beyond predicting what might happen. AI agents may be able to identify patients, verify missing information, support referrals, monitor outcomes, and complete tasks across multiple systems. Finding Cochlear Implant Candidates Earlier: How structured data and AI could help identify patients who may qualify for cochlear implantation before they are lost in the referral pathway. The Learning Health System: Why McCaslin believes healthcare is moving toward systems where every patient encounter contributes data that can improve decisions for the next patient. The Data Problem: Why artificial intelligence is only as useful as the information behind it, and why audiology programs need to think differently about how they structure, capture, and control their clinical data. Building the Right Team: Why future innovation in audiology may require partnerships with AI engineers, operations engineers, biomedical engineers, and other professionals who bring completely different perspectives to longstanding clinical problems. What Happens to the Audiologist?: As AI becomes better at pattern recognition, diagnostics, and routine tasks, the audiologist's value may increasingly center on interpretation, critical thinking, counseling, communication, and helping patients make informed decisions. The Business Model Will Have to Change: Why greater efficiency does not automatically solve the question of how clinicians are compensated for the counseling, rehabilitation, and decision-making that become even more important in an AI-supported healthcare system. Preparing for What Comes Next: Why healthcare organizations that invest in people, data infrastructure, engineering resources, and internal champions may be better positioned to adapt than those waiting for new technology to simply arrive. McCaslin's message is not that AI is going to replace audiologists. It is that the infrastructure around audiology is changing quickly, and clinicians need to understand enough about these technologies to participate in shaping how they are used. For cochlear implant and medical audiology programs, that creates an important question: Are we preparing our systems, our data, and our teams for where healthcare is going, or are we still designing care around the way it has always been delivered? Who should listen? Audiologists, otologists, neurotologists, cochlear implant teams, vestibular specialists, hearing healthcare professionals, program directors, clinic managers, hospital administrators, researchers, students, and anyone interested in how artificial intelligence may change the delivery of medical audiology. Stay up to date with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram @MedAudPro. Want to learn more about FCOM? https://FCOMnow.com (https://fcomnow.com/) Join the MedAudPro Provider Community: https://medaudpro.com/register (https://medaudpro.com/register)

3. 

   11 Aug 2026

   From the Operating Room to Outcomes: Designing Smarter CI Systems with Guest Ashley Nassiri, MD, MBA

   Cochlear implantation has advanced dramatically, but getting the right patient from hearing loss to evaluation, surgery, activation, and long-term care can still be unnecessarily complicated. As candidacy expands and demand grows, the question is not simply how to see more patients. It is how to design a smarter system around them. Meet Ashley Nassiri, MD, MBA, a fellowship-trained neurotologist and skull base surgeon at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where she serves as Director of the Cochlear Implant Program. Her work examines cochlear implant access, utilization, surgical care, and new models of care delivery. With training in both medicine and business, Dr. Nassiri brings a broader perspective to how CI programs can improve access, efficiency, and outcomes. What You'll Hear: Thinking Beyond the Procedure: Why successful cochlear implant care depends on much more than what happens in the operating room. The Access Problem: Why cochlear implant utilization remains low despite broader candidacy and greater awareness, and where patients can get lost along the way. Rethinking the Traditional Pathway: How long-standing workflows may create unnecessary delays, visits, and barriers for patients. Designing Care Around the Patient: Why programs should evaluate which parts of the pathway truly require separate appointments and which can be coordinated differently. New Models of Care: What same-day consultation and surgery, telemedicine, remote programming, and digital education can teach us about improving CI delivery. Using the Right Resource at the Right Time: Why every part of CI care does not need to happen in the same place, with the same provider, or through the same type of visit. The Surgeon’s Role in System Design: Why physicians need to think beyond surgery and understand the operational barriers that affect whether patients reach implantation and receive appropriate follow-up. Technology Is Only Part of the Answer: Why remote tools can improve access, but only when they are part of a thoughtful clinical model. Measuring What Matters: Why programs should look beyond visit volume and focus on patient experience, access, clinical outcomes, and the use of limited healthcare resources. Dr. Nassiri makes the case for viewing cochlear implant care as one connected system rather than a series of individual appointments. Improving access does not mean sacrificing quality or simply asking clinicians to work faster. It means identifying where the current pathway creates friction and redesigning care more intentionally. Who should listen? Audiologists, otologists, neurotologists, cochlear implant teams, hearing healthcare professionals, program directors, clinic managers, hospital administrators, private practice owners, students, residents, fellows, researchers, and anyone working to improve access and outcomes in cochlear implant care. If your CI program is growing or operating largely the same way it has for years, this episode asks an important question: Are we optimizing individual parts of cochlear implant care, or are we designing a better system from beginning to end? Stay up to date with us on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram @MedAudPro. Want to learn more about FCOM? https://FCOMnow.com (https://fcomnow.com/) Join the MedAudPro Provider Community: https://medaudpro.com/register (https://medaudpro.com/register) This episode is sponsored by Envoy Medical.

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

4 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

2 ratings