Why don't insurance companies cover hearing aids?

[cynatnite]

My FIL is losing his hearing as he gets older. He really needs a hearing aid and they would run close to $1000 a piece. If it's a medical problem, why aren't they covered?

[dogman]

1. Some do.

I just received a Blue Cross/ Blue Shield flyer the other day.

[SoCalDem]

2. I have wondered that as well. I guess it's because hearing impairment

is considered a natural part of aging..like wrinkles or gray hair..

My sweet friend lost most of her hearing, and her policy would not cover it..she also had cancer, and they told her husband he was "wasting' his money if he paid out of pocketm because "she was gonna die soon anyway" :cry:

Walter got her the hearing aid anyway, so she could hear him and her childre talking to her as she lay dying :cry:

[murray hill farm]

19. Usually your state vocational rehabilitation will pay...

especially if one is working and needs to hear to maintain employment, but usually this is not a definite...the working part, and just the work of maintaining a home will qualify one for this service.

[DavidDvorkin]

3. Mine were partially covered

Total was $2800, and the insurance company paid $500 of that.

The insurance companies will pay as little as they can get away with paying. That applies to everything, not just to hearing aids. Shows why we need some variety of single-payer national health, with the insurance companies having no part in it.

[ellenfl]

4. medicare doesn't cover it either.

my 88yo mother needs one but doesn't want to pay the out-of-pocket cost. old people in this country are disposable, you know. maybe the baby boomer generation can change some of that thinking. there's going to be a LOT of old people needing hearing aids in the next few years.

ellen fl

[AZBlue]

24. No, they don't - my father's running into the same problem.

The way we treat seniors in this country is deplorable.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

5. and even for the young

I never could understand insurance policies that didn't cover teeth and glasses.

I have worn glasses since I was seven years old, I needed them sooner, and literally couldn't leave the house without them. And we know that teeth can give you hell.

[cynatnite]

7. My oldest daughter has had to wear glasses since she was three...

she can't see a thing without them. For the longest time they were so thick and it we would have to save every dime so she could get glasses since insurance didn't cover them. A kid needs them to see and to read. I remember how aggravated I was because of how badly she needed them just to function.

She's 23 now and about five years ago they started making contacts she could wear. They were much cheaper and she loved not having to wear thick glasses. Her esteem shot through the roof.

[Ilsa]

8. Bad teeth can do worse than cause pain. The bacteria involved

in tooth decay can cause heart problems, inclding IIRC, heart valve problems.

I don't understand why insurance companies don't want to cover items that actually help prevent accidents, like hearing aids and glasses.

[MountainLaurel]

16. No kidding

My little brother is legally deaf and had to wear a hearing aid to attend public school. Was it covered by insurance? Nope. Back then they were $500 each.

[liberalhistorian]

20. Oh, for the days when they were only $500 apiece!

When I first started having to wear them, 22 years ago, they really weren't too bad, about $600 apiece. Insurance didn't cover any of it, of course, but I had family who were able to muster up some resources.

Now, however, they're horrendously expensive. I'll be paying off my latest pair for the next fifty years, given the lender's horrendous finance charges that are almost more than the monthly payments, plus the interest and fees and phone payment fees, etc., etc., ad nauseaum.

[Cleita]

6. Because they don't want to spend money on actual health care.

It's how they protect their bottom line by insuring the young and healthy and denying coverage for what is the inevitable health care problems of aging. They exclude actual health care coverage for the sick and elderly at every opportunity that they can get away with it. Either that or you pay through the nose for the coverage.

[liberalhistorian]

21. They don't cover hearing aids for

the young and healthy, either, trust me. And what in the hell is insurance for, and what the fuck do you pay the premiums for, if not to be able to use it when you need it?

[Cleita]

22. This is why insurance is a bad way to fund health care.

Insurance by its nature is to cover you for the occasional disaster. Like you get car insurance in case you get into an accident. But you will not intend to get into an accident. With health care as you get older you are going to need more and more health care, yet this is about the time the insurance companies start trying to not cover you. This is why they cherry pick the young and healthy and don't want anyone with pre-existing conditions or over a certain age.

Also, they don't cover eyeglasses or decent dental care, all health problems that young people can get as well as your hearing aid. This is why they don't cover it.
It's a very bad system and we need to legally make insurance companies to stop offering health care coverage so that we can then bring in universal health care, which works find in all the industrial countries of the world except this one.

[karlrschneider]

9. Hey, he's not really deaf, he just chooses to not listen.

:eyes:

Just to CMA, :sarcasm:

[BlueStorm]

10. Mine were covered through Medicaid...

But of course they had to be the cheap kind. I still have some trouble hearing.

Blue

[melm00se]

11. because of unscrupulous

hearing aide providers have scammed and scammed their way to riches that many providers just said "screw it, we won't cover it"

[King Coal]

12. They don't pay for them because they don't have to.

Insurance is the act of sharing risk. By definition it should be socialized due to the single infrastructure of those of us needing to share risk. If we own the system we can decide what is covered and what is not. The fat cat rich who are in favor of cheap labor don't want to contribute; they would rather make huge profits from managing the shared money. Well, the beauty of democracy is that if we so desire and are resourceful, we can compel them to share, and eliminate the huge cost of managing the process and inject more dollars into the coverage.

[Raine]

13. We ended up having to pay around $3,000

for my father's hearing aides and they never really worked right. He finally just gave up on the darn things so we are still yelling at him and passing him notes. :-(

[KamaAina]

14. Most hearing aids are pieces of junk

my colleague who uses them reports that hers pick up feedback from the air conditioning. And for this people are shelling out plasma-TV dough?! Ye gods. :grr:

[Pastiche423]

15. My dad lost the hearing in one ear

due to an explosion outside of his foxhole in WWII. He was 19. In 1997, I finally persuaded him to get hearing aids. I was dumbfounded when I learned that neither Medicare nor his secondary insurance would pay for them.

Once he had them, he complained constantly that the sound of his refridge was maddening. When I would call him on the phone and he kept saying HUH?, I'd ask him where his ears were. His response, "In my pocket."

[Caution]

17. Because insurance is nothing more than legalized extortion

[liberalhistorian]

18. That's a good goddamned question. I'm almost 42 and have

worn hearing aids since age 20. Private insurance has never, ever covered one penny of their costs. Medicaid covers them (or at least, they did when I was on it twelve years ago, don't know if that's the case now), but they only cover one even if you need them for both ears, as I do.

My latest pair I got three years ago and my boss had to co-sign for the loan to get them, which he gladly did because I needed them in order to function at work. They were nearly two grand apiece, and that's without any extra bells and whistles. I'm still paying the goddamned things off nearly four years later, because their fucking finance charges are horrendous and most of my payments go toward the interest and finance charges and not the principal. Otherwise, I would have had them paid off two years ago. It seems I'm just spinning my wheels, because the more I pay, the more I seem to owe. It scares the hell out of me, because if these aids wear out before I've paid this fucking loan off, I won't be able to get another one and there's no way in hell I could afford them.

I truly wish I could afford the new digital kinds that filter out background noise, but there's just no way. I can't wear my aids in a public place or large gathering, because it amplifies EVERYTHING, with no filtering, and it's just too damned much.

I truly would like to know why the fucking insurance companies don't cover at least some of this, it truly pisses me off.

[uppityperson]

23. exactly. I got digital ones through a private hearing aid person (not chain)

one of those ones that actually want to help you rather than get rich (more customers=more money rather than more money/customer). They had some demo ones, last yrs model that sold to me for cost. Had never been used, just shown to people. It was nice being able to afford them. I need to hear for my job but insurance won't cover them. Very annoying. I love my digital ones, don't have to adjust them, as my hearing loss changes they can adjust them in the office with their computers so I keep the same ones.

[Booster]

25. Come on. They can't cover hearing aids and Viagra too.

[Zookeeper]

26. A friend of mine had to buy them for her..

teenaged daughter, who was losing her hearing due to medication that was given to her mother (my friend) during pregnancy.

Her speech is not normal due to her hearing loss and it has been quite traumatic for a young teenaged girl and just having to wear hearing aids at all has been a source of embarrassment for her.

To add insult to injury, the cost was not covered by insurance.