Hearing aids are the best solution for relieving hearing loss. Yet at the same time, they are also very expensive.
In fact, most hearing aids are so expensive that not everyone who needs them can easily afford them.
Why Are Hearing Aids So Expensive?
Well, the answer to that question is a little bit more complicated. And there are a number of reasons for the high cost of hearing aids.
First, understand that hearing aids can be quite high tech. They can help you hear, filter out background noise, adjust the volume, use Bluetooth to link up to your phone and much more. And they do that all in a quite small package. Making all that happen isn’t cheap and is one reason hearing aids cost so much.
One of the most common reasons you’ll hear is that hearing aid companies are continuously investing in research and development. They do this to continue improving what hearing aids can do. Because this research and development is so expensive, these costs are passed along to the consumers.
Another reason why hearing aids are so expensive is that there are only six manufacturers of hearing aids in the world. Those six manufacturers control 98 percent of the hearing aids market. When you have such a low number of companies selling most of the hearing aids, there isn’t as much competition to lower prices.
These manufacturers sell hearing aids at a relatively high price to audiologists. In fact, it costs audiologists hundreds, if not thousands of dollars to get hearing aids from the manufacturers.
Then, once the audiologists or hearing clinics get their hands on the hearing aids, they will add another hundreds or thousands of dollars before selling them to patients who need them.
So by the time the consumer is able to buy a hearing aid, it will often cost them between $1,000 to over $6,000.
Does Health Insurance Cover Hearing Aids?
Sadly, Original Medicare (which consists of Medicare Part A and Part B), as well as most health insurance companies, do not provide coverage for hearing aids.
However, certain healthcare insurances such as Medicare Advantage plans, which are also known as Medicare Part C plans, provide coverage for them.
One thing to note here is that, even though they do not provide coverage for hearing aids, Original Medicare covers similar devices such as cochlear implants. Original Medicare provides coverage for cochlear implants under certain circumstances.
Factors That Affect The Cost of Hearing Aids
There are a number of factors that affect the costs of hearing aids. A big one is what features are included in the hearing aids. This could include Bluetooth, directional microphones, digital noise reduction, the number of frequency channels, self-learning, data logging, multiple programs and more.
Also, whether you will purchase your hearing aids bundled with some services or not will affect the cost. As will how much customization work you need for your hearing aids.
And, of course, the type of hearing aid you get will play a big role in how much it costs.
Now that you know that developing hearing aids is a time-consuming and costly process as well as how technically advanced they are, it’s a little bit easier to understand why their cost is so high. Hopefully, this article has helped you gain an insight into why these little devices are so expensive.