Dr. Mandy Rounseville-Norgaard spent nine years serving veterans through the VA hospital system and another seven years building two successful audiology practices in South Dakota. Now, she’s bringing that experience, along with a lifetime of personal understanding to the Florida Panhandle. 

• “We’ve done our purpose here. We’ve helped the people we can help, and now it’s time for a new chapter of seeing a need where it needs to be served,” Rounseville-Norgaard said. “We see a need down in the Panhandle.”

Born with significant hearing loss in both ears, Rounseville-Norgaard has worn hearing devices since age 3. That personal understanding, combined with her 19 years of professional experience, shapes the care she provides at Miramar Beach Audiology Associates, which opened nearly two years ago. 

“The advances in hearing aid technology have made vast improvements in recent years,” Rounseville-Norgaard said. “I am excited to be able to share what hearing aids have to offer based on my personal and professional experience to help others struggling to hear. Hearing loss is a quality of life issue, I get it — I live it.”

The practice, located at 42 Business Centre Drive, Unit 306, serves a geographic area where hearing care providers are limited between Panama City and Pensacola. Through her VA contract work, Rounseville-Norgaard sees patients from as far as Tallahassee and Alabama, within a 90-mile radius that the VA covers for mileage reimbursement. 

• Rounseville-Norgaard worked in the VA hospital system from 2009 to 2018, focusing on veteran care. In 2018, she opened her first private practice in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, catering to both veterans and general patients. She expanded to a second location in 2021 but closed it this year as she transitions her services to Florida full-time. 

Her path to audiology began at Missouri State University, where she and her twin sister — also born with hearing loss — played handball on scholarship. After graduation, her handball coach suggested she pursue communication sciences and disorders. She explored deaf education before finding her fit in audiology. 

She earned her master’s degree from the University of South Dakota and completed her doctorate online through the University of Florida while working in Kansas City and Minneapolis. Her background includes experience in private practice, ear nose and throat clinics, educational settings, OSHA compliance, hearing conservation and the Department of Veterans Affairs. 

The practice offers a full range of audiology services including diagnostic hearing tests, ear cleaning, professional earwax removal, hearing aid fitting and prescription, hearing aid repair for all brands, tinnitus management, custom hearing protection and OSHA compliance exams for workplace hearing conservation programs.

• Rounseville-Norgaard uses Real Ear Measurement technology, an evidence-based best practice that ensures hearing aids are programmed specifically for each patient’s unique ear anatomy and hearing loss. The practice fits advanced hearing aids from leading manufacturers including Starkey, Phonak, Oticon, Signia, Widex, Unitron, and Resound.

She is currently working with Walton County school nurses to retest children who failed their initial hearing screenings.

The practice currently operates part-time hours on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., with plans to expand in the future. The office currently accepts Medicare.

Rounseville-Norgaard said her personal experience with hearing loss helps set realistic expectations for patients beginning their journey with hearing aids, making counseling and treatment more effective. 

• “What I find is the providers that don’t actually experience what the patients experience, it makes it that much harder to counsel, to set the expectations and to even treat the hearing loss,” she said. 

Her husband is a retired Army veteran who served 20 years, including a deployment to Iraq, adding another layer of understanding when working with military families in the area. The couple also owns a home in Freeport, and Rounseville-Norgaard’s sister works for Florida State Parks in Chipley.

Rounseville-Norgaard noted that many people incorrectly associate hearing loss exclusively with aging, when in reality it affects all age groups. The condition can begin in a person’s early 50s or affect children who fail hearing screenings. The condition can result from multiple factors including noise exposure, medications and head trauma. 

For patients dealing with tinnitus — commonly described as ringing, buzzing or other sounds in the ears — the practice offers treatment options including hearing aids with masking features that can help relieve symptoms. 

For more information or to schedule an appointment, contact the office at 850-517-6977 or visit here. Miramar Beach Audiology Associates is located at 42 Business Centre Drive, Unit 306 in Miramar Beach.