Can't pair MFI Hearing Aids with Mac Mini M4 on 15.3.1. At wits end.

I have Oticon Real Hearing Aids (HAs) which are on the compatibility list for working with Mac Mini M4. The HAs get recognized under "Accessibility" > "Hearing Devices" but the option to connect to them is grayed out. So far I've tried the following: \-- start and stop BT via System Preferences \-- kill and restart BT via terminal \-- delete apple.com.bluetoothd.plist and let it be recreated \-- turn off BT on all other devices in the room \-- turn HAs off and on to restart BT Mac mini BT works fine to wireless keyboard and mouse. Hearing Aids work fine with iPad and iPhone via BT. I can also successfully use an intermediary device called a Connect Clip to sit between the HAs and the Mini and that works fine too. But I cannot for the life of me get the native M4 BT to pair with the Oticon Real hearing aids natively (that is, without using the Connect Clip). It feels like something is not quite right with the Mac Mini BT. Is there a way to replace the Mac Mini BT module? I've tried booting into safe mode to see if that helps but my Mac Mini just won't go into safe mode after I click on the hard drive icon while depressing the shift key and it just boots normally. (Recovery mode works). I know I'm missing something here. Ideas? Thanks!