Methods and systems are described for transferring programming information to a hearing instrument. Such programming information may include hearing loss compensation parameters and/or other information pertaining to device operation. In one embodiment, each of a pair of hearing instruments prescribed and configured for a particular hearing loss contains the necessary information for operation on either the left or right ear. The data from one hearing instrument may then be transferred to the other hearing instrument by means of wireless communication. In other embodiments, programming information is transferred wirelessly by an external device connected to a database.