These can be grouped into patient-symptoms vs. diagnostic tests. Symptoms, most commonly hearing loss, may bring the patient in.
Audiometry can document and measure hearing loss and the nature of it.
These questions boil down to an attempt to see if there is some reason the patient has lost hearing on just one side. If no clear cause can be identified, there is a decision to be made. AN accounts for only a small percentage of cases where there is unilateral loss. Therefore, some doctors might advise watching the symptoms and waiting, with follow up tests on hearing in another 6 months or so. In the majority of cases the doctor encounters, this makes sense.