A study conducted at Henry Ford Health System in Detroit, Michigan finds that lower costs for hearing aids are not enough to motivate adults with mild hearing loss to purchase a device at a younger age or before their hearing worsens. The findings are published in the May issue of The Hearing Journal.
Hearing loss is a common problem in older adults. Some 75 to 80 percent of adults with mild hearing loss do not get hearing aids, despite the potential benefits. For many with mild hearing loss it’s more of an annoyance rather than something that impacts their ability to function.
While even mild hearing loss can have a negative impact on quality of life, the authors note that it is still unclear why more people are not motivated to use hearing aids. To determine how much of a factor cost is in hearing aid acquisition, the researchers studied the medical records of 1,200 patients who got hearing aids between 2007 and 2010. The patients had either full insurance coverage, partial insurance coverage or had to cover the entire cost out of pocket.
As part of the study, the cost for hearing aids in the partial insurance coverage group was reduced by 20 percent for two devices or 40 percent for one device. Aside from the Veteran’s Administration system, hearing aid care in the U.S. is generally not fully covered by insurance.
The findings indicate that patients who had full coverage for hearing aids obtained them about seven years earlier and with better hearing than the other two groups. The results, however, show no difference in age or hearing loss between people who paid for the full cost of hearing aids or those purchased hearing aids at a substantially reduced cost.
The more patients had to pay out of pocket — those in the partial and pay out-of-pocket groups — the more likely they were to upgrade to a more advanced device. Patients with full insurance coverage were the least likely to upgrade, and only purchased the device that was fully covered by insurance.
According to the study, the only situation in which patients are motivated to get hearing aids earlier is when they are provided at no cost. But study leader Virginia Ramachandran (pictured above) notes that “free” may not be the best deal for some patients. “If insurance only fully covers certain hearing aids,” says Ramachandran, “patients may miss out on reaping the benefits of more technologically advanced devices or devices better suited to their needs.”
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