Thursday, June 7, 2012

Hearing Aids

It has been awhile since I spoken about hearing aids.

Unfortunality as many of you know hearing aids are not covered by insurance companies. This frustrates me because hearing aids are expensive. I grew up wearing many different hearing aids, not realizing my parents paid out so much money just so I can hear. The worst part is I barely used them. 

About two years ago I received my last pair of hearing aids that cost a fortune. This will probably be my last set of aids forever because its so expensive. Unfortunality two days after I received the aids I lost all of my hearing in my right ear. The right one is not being used because now I have the cochlear implant. But, lately I have been using my left hearing aid to watch TV because I have the streamer. When I watch tv whoever is talking on TV will go into my ear. I love this streamer. 

Anyway, I do know that my insurance which is Empire United Healthcare does cover some of the cost of hearing aids. But the catch is its only every 5 five years they ONLY cover $500.00 for each ear.  Then you have to pay the rest out of pocket. I think is ridiculous that WE have to pay a fortune just so we can hear.  BUT insurance companies will pay for a $50,000 surgery? None of this makes sense to me. This is such a frustrating topic for me. In the future I hope insurance companies will ALLOW FULL coverage for hearing aids. There are so many people with hearing loss these days especially the little ones. Often I hear a child cannot hear or talk because their family DOES NOT have any money to buy them hearing aids. This breaks my heart.

I WISH I had all the money in the world to give every child who has a hearing loss  the opportunity to hear.  Starkey Hearing Foundation  is a amazing organization.

Thanks Tammi who found this article and shared it on her blog.



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Have a good day!

© 2012 My personal Hearing Loss blog

  


3 comments:

Kathi said...

It is very wrong that most insurance companies will not cover hearing aids. They tend to look at these as "cosmetic". How is having a hearing loss and needing to wear an aid considered cosmetic???? From what I understand, Medicare covers hearing aids and anything related to a hearing loss including cochlear implant programming, etc. My last insurance company refused to cover any CI programmings which made it very difficult for me to afford getting programming done or any testing.

Frieda Loves Bread said...

It frustrates me too, that insurance companies do not pay for hearing aids OR batteries. But most will provide vision insurance, covering yearly eye exams and eyeglasses. I am sure $$$ is the culprit. Back in the 70's when my parents paid for my first set of hearing aids, they were almost $1,000 ~ a huge chunk of change and batteries were (and still are) around $1 each.

Danielle said...

Kathi- I totally agree with you. Medicare and Medicaid to pay for hearing aids and ever cochlear implant batteries :). I hope you have a better insurance now so you can get programs and testing done.

Frieda- I definitely think money is the problem here. My batteries are NOT $1.00. My hearing aid batteries are $30.00. As far as my processor batteries I dont pay anything for them phew!