Testimonials & Reviews
Sharp Hearing Care Professionals
Audiology located in Oxnard, Santa Barbara, Santa Monica, and Tarzana, CA
Sharp Hearing Care Professionals always appreciates feedback from our valued patients. To date, we’re thrilled to have collected 6 reviews. Please read what others are saying about Sharp Hearing Care Professionals below, and as always, we would love to collect your feedback.
Joseph K.
Submitted 05/01/24
In 45 years of wearing hearing aids (since infancy), this was the first time I felt compelled to walk out of an audiologist office due to completely inappropriate, passive aggressive behavior.
I felt the operator of this business, Kevin Sharim, was rude, completely condescending, offensive, discriminatory, incompetent, pushy, irritating and in general just a complete waste of my time from start to finish.
As soon as he greeted me he stated loudly, "WOW, you are WAAAAY too young to be in here!!!" Which is incredibly offensive to me as an HoH (hard of hearing) person of the (d)eaf community, as I and my brother were both born with congenital hearing loss. I have relied on lip reading and hearing aids since I was first diagnosed with hearing loss.
I corrected him saying, "Actually, i'm 50 years old and born with congenital hearing loss," to which he replied more loudly...."AGAIN, like I said before, YOU ARE WAYYYYY TOO YOUNG TO BE IN HERE!!!!" Unbelievable. You've got to be a special kind of stupid to not understand how offensive this is, especially after the offended person politely corrects you.
The only thing I can liken this to is someone with a really bad "dad" joke that they LOVE to keep using over and over despite the joke not landing and no one ever laughing. They don't take a hint...they keep using the same dumb dad joke, and if you don't laugh the first time then they REPEAT themselves with emphasis a second time rather reassess whether the joke was appropriate or not.
So that this can be a teachable moment for anyone reading this, please understand that hearing loss comes in all shapes and sizes... Profound hearing loss, minor hearing loss, moderate loss, severe loss and everything in between.
There is no age limit nor any age quantification on hearing loss. Babies can lose their hearing from fevers or disease in the same way that an elderly can lose hearing due to the process of getting older. Some people are simply born "differently-abled" and have hearing loss due to genetics. You should NEVER shame someone by saying something to the effect of "wait why are you deaf/hard of hearing, you're way too young?!" Any audiologist knows this. I have never met anyone so clueless and offensive in my life.
I hated the fact that he took my picture in his office. I did not want my picture taken. Again, this was a first for me in 45 years of audiology tests. A picture is completely unnecessary and one should be given a choice. I said I prefer not to have my picture taken and he mumbled something about office policy and took it. Whatever.
Kevin was very pushy and condescending. He said he needed to look inside my ears and asked me to remove my hearing aids. This is standard procedure and I was happy to comply. What I did not appreciate was after removing my aids he urges, "Turn 'em off, turn 'em off!" As if I'm a child watching tv past my bed time and being urged to "turn off the tv, turn off the tv!" You NEVER need to tell a patient twice to do ANYTHING. It is my prerogative to feel comfortable and to turn off MY EQUIPMENT when and where I deem appropriate. In this case, it made no sense to turn off my hearing aids because I would simply have to turn them back on again after the hearing test was administered. So silly.
When we proceeded to the audio booth, he told me, "just leave your hearing aids here." No thank you. I don't want to. I've lost hearing aids before that way and I feel like it's good practice to keep them on me as they're very expensive. And the whole time I'm thinking, "I'm older than this guy why is he talking to me like I'm a child?"
Next, we go into the sound booth and this is where it gets REALLY crazy. A standard hearing test involves listening for a series of beeps through headphones. When you hear a sound you push a button to indicate that you heard it. There is some degree of pause between each beep and they cannot be sequentially administered every 2 seconds or so, or else you would be able to correctly guess when to push the button thereby cheating and ruining the point of the hearing test. Very standard stuff which is probably taught in the first year of audiology school.
Kevin starts administering beeps every other second.... like Morse Code. No pause, just beeps being administered rapid-fire so that I cannot tell if I'm pushing the button for the beep I just heard or the beep I'm about to hear. It was so confusing. I even asked him if there was supposed to be a pause in between the beeps so that you can't just guess when the next beep is and he said "nope this is how we do it."
Then he hurt my ears.
He said now I'm going to turn it up really loud and you tell me when it's uncomfortable. I expressed that might hurt my ears and he says "that's what we gotta do." I've never had this done in any hearing test. EVER. After about the 3rd time blasting a high pitched sound into my ears I took off the headphones and walked out of the office. UNSAFE, beware.
Joseph K.
Submitted 05/01/24
In 45 years of wearing hearing aids (since infancy), this was the first time I felt compelled to walk out of an audiologist office due to completely inappropriate, passive aggressive behavior.
I felt the operator of this business, Kevin Sharim, was rude, completely condescending, offensive, discriminatory, incompetent, pushy, irritating and in general just a complete waste of my time from start to finish.
As soon as he greeted me he stated loudly, "WOW, you are WAAAAY too young to be in here!!!" Which is incredibly offensive to me as an HoH (hard of hearing) person of the (d)eaf community, as I and my brother were both born with congenital hearing loss. I have relied on lip reading and hearing aids since I was first diagnosed with hearing loss.
I corrected him saying, "Actually, i'm 50 years old and born with congenital hearing loss," to which he replied more loudly...."AGAIN, like I said before, YOU ARE WAYYYYY TOO YOUNG TO BE IN HERE!!!!" Unbelievable. You've got to be a special kind of stupid to not understand how offensive this is, especially after the offended person politely corrects you.
The only thing I can liken this to is someone with a really bad "dad" joke that they LOVE to keep using over and over despite the joke not landing and no one ever laughing. They don't take a hint...they keep using the same dumb dad joke, and if you don't laugh the first time then they REPEAT themselves with emphasis a second time rather reassess whether the joke was appropriate or not.
So that this can be a teachable moment for anyone reading this, please understand that hearing loss comes in all shapes and sizes... Profound hearing loss, minor hearing loss, moderate loss, severe loss and everything in between.
There is no age limit nor any age quantification on hearing loss. Babies can lose their hearing from fevers or disease in the same way that an elderly can lose hearing due to the process of getting older. Some people are simply born "differently-abled" and have hearing loss due to genetics. You should NEVER shame someone by saying something to the effect of "wait why are you deaf/hard of hearing, you're way too young?!" Any audiologist knows this. I have never met anyone so clueless and offensive in my life.
I hated the fact that he took my picture in his office. I did not want my picture taken. Again, this was a first for me in 45 years of audiology tests. A picture is completely unnecessary and one should be given a choice. I said I prefer not to have my picture taken and he mumbled something about office policy and took it. Whatever.
Kevin was very pushy and condescending. He said he needed to look inside my ears and asked me to remove my hearing aids. This is standard procedure and I was happy to comply. What I did not appreciate was after removing my aids he urges, "Turn 'em off, turn 'em off!" As if I'm a child watching tv past my bed time and being urged to "turn off the tv, turn off the tv!" You NEVER need to tell a patient twice to do ANYTHING. It is my prerogative to feel comfortable and to turn off MY EQUIPMENT when and where I deem appropriate. In this case, it made no sense to turn off my hearing aids because I would simply have to turn them back on again after the hearing test was administered. So silly.
When we proceeded to the audio booth, he told me, "just leave your hearing aids here." No thank you. I don't want to. I've lost hearing aids before that way and I feel like it's good practice to keep them on me as they're very expensive. And the whole time I'm thinking, "I'm older than this guy why is he talking to me like I'm a child?"
Next, we go into the sound booth and this is where it gets REALLY crazy. A standard hearing test involves listening for a series of beeps through headphones. When you hear a sound you push a button to indicate that you heard it. There is some degree of pause between each beep and they cannot be sequentially administered every 2 seconds or so, or else you would be able to correctly guess when to push the button thereby cheating and ruining the point of the hearing test. Very standard stuff which is probably taught in the first year of audiology school.
Kevin starts administering beeps every other second.... like Morse Code. No pause, just beeps being administered rapid-fire so that I cannot tell if I'm pushing the button for the beep I just heard or the beep I'm about to hear. It was so confusing. I even asked him if there was supposed to be a pause in between the beeps so that you can't just guess when the next beep is and he said "nope this is how we do it."
Then he hurt my ears.
He said now I'm going to turn it up really loud and you tell me when it's uncomfortable. I expressed that might hurt my ears and he says "that's what we gotta do." I've never had this done in any hearing test. EVER. After about the 3rd time blasting a high pitched sound into my ears I took off the headphones and walked out of the office. UNSAFE, beware.
Harold G.
Submitted 03/07/24
Already felt duped on the previous visits…15 minutes if your lucky for $100 ..that’s more than my physicians charges….and then today $75.00 charged to upload a program provided for free by the hearing aid company…..$75 to install a simple program is a complete scam….how much does Facebook , Google, Apple, Samsung, Sony, Mercedes, charge you for updates ? Nothing ! Yet Sharp Hearing needs $75.00 how sad ….they are taking advantage every unknowing….elderly…non english speaking…..hearing aid user or their insurance carriers……… Someone should alert The Department Of Consumer Affairs Oh lets not forget $50.00 for a "under warranty receiver" you can buy from Phonak for $50.00 Paper for Warranty’s must be expensive these days
Johnny G.
Submitted 05/27/21
The level of service, knowledge, and care that I receive from Kevin at the Santa Monica office is unparalleled. I am extremely pleased with his commitment to making sure that all of my issues are addressed promptly. I would highly recommend Kevin to anyone looking to purchase hearing aids.
Iraj J.
Submitted 04/02/21
Mr. Sharim provided me with excellent service. Because of him I can now hear again.
Erica H.
Submitted 02/02/21
My experience with Dr. Kevin was very easy and comfortable. Since my first visit where I bought hearing aids and each since for checkups, he and his team have been outstanding. He genuinely cares about his patients and has worked with me through all the problems I had in a quick and professional manner. I would highly recommend Sharp Hearing to anyone looking for hearing aids and a fantastic audiologist!