What? Hearing Aids Are Out of Range for Most Americans (Op-Ed)
By Dr. Darius Kohan, Lenox Hill Hospital
While Thursday's U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirming the Affordable Care Act is good news for millions of Americans who receive subsidies from the program's health care exchanges, the vast majority of Americans with hearing loss will still be left with difficult choices.
Hearing aids , which amplify sounds, are widely considered the gold standard and first line treatment for hearing loss — yet fewer than one in three adults age 70 and older who could benefit from hearing aids has ever used one. This proportion is even lower among adults ages 20 to 69.
Mind the gap
Part of the reason for the treatment gap is that Medicare, the federal health insurance program for people age 65 and older, does not cover any of the costs associated with hearing aids, routine hearing exams or fittings for hearing aids. And, for the most part, these services are not covered by other U.S. government agencies or private insurers, although there are some exceptions. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (which covers military service members) and some states cover hearing aids if an employee's hearing loss is job-related. Other states cover hearing aids for children younger than 15. And some high-end private insurance companies also cover some, or all, of the costs associated with hearing aids.
However, despite those exceptions, the United States is lagging behind in this area. Many other nations — including the United Kingdom, Israel, Germany and Belgium — offer at least partial coverage for hearing aids.
Based on standard hearing examinations, in the United States one in eight people — 13 percent, or 30 million individuals — age 12 or older has moderate to severe hearing loss, and the rates of hearing loss increase with age. Moreover, nearly 25 percent of people ages 65 to 74, and 50 percent of those age 75 and older, have "disabling" hearing loss, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD).
The NIDCD cites exposure to noise as a cause of hearing loss, but in my opinion, the aging of the population is driving hearing loss. People are living longer than ever before, and with advancing age comes the risk of hearing loss...
Read the full story at Live Science.
http://www.livescience.com/51369-hearing-aids-unavailable-to-most-americans.html
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