Losing Your Hearing? Are You the Last to Know?

Listen-Up Boomers! While you still can.
If hearing loss was classified as a disability, it would be the largest disability class in the U.S. As Boomers age in great numbers in the coming years, it will grow even larger and not just from aging itself but from Boomer (and generations after) experiences with very loud noises. Rock concerts, anyone? Heavy metal, anyone? Earphones, anyone?
I’m told that when someone has a hearing loss, they’re usually the last to know. That’s been true for my friends.
It’s also been true for my Mom. She lives in another state and when we’d talk on the phone, she’d hang up in mid-conversation. It was not until I asked my brother why she was mad at me that I learned she had a hearing loss and refused to get a hearing aid.
Knowing what mattered most to her, I warned her that she was courting risk. How would she feel, for example, if her lack of responsiveness was mistaken as Alzheimer’s? What if she lost her license after being involved in an accident?
It worked. She got a hearing test the next day.
She’s got a hearing aid now. Visiting her these past holidays, it was clear that the technology – expensive though it may be – is far less developed than I imagined. I thought the quality and user-friendliness (especially for the $6,000 price) would be better.
I also thought Medicare was paying for some of it.
WRONG!
Apparently, Medicare coverage for hearing aids will take an act of Congress. We’d better get started making that happe...

Source: Disruptive Women in Health Care - January 4, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: dw at disruptivewomen.net Tags: Aging Cost Coverage Policy Medicare Source Type: blogs