Ed note: Perhaps by January of 2020, hearing aids will be available over the counter and available without seeing a hearing specialist — at a fraction of the current costs. This may work well for those will mild or even moderate hearing loss. Currently hearing aids cost $3000+ per unit. An exception is Costco where top brand hearing aids are about a third of the cost. Both private audiologists and Costco hearing aid technicians examine the ears, do a complete audiogram and program hearing aids to your needs. I suspect the cost of all hearing aids will drop once they become available over the counter. The industry is getting a needed shakeup.
From the NYT: At this point, over a year later, I can’t remember if I asked Senator Elizabeth Warren about the Spock ears, or what.
She had called me on the phone at my house in Maine. This was a couple of months after I had devoted one of my Times columns to hearing aids. I had lamented a number of things in that essay, especially the cultural stigma associated with the devices. Cool glasses? You’re Elton John. Hearing aids? You’re a little old lady.
It was my argument that hearing aids should be more stylish — provocative, even. If hearing aids came in the form of, say, pointy Spock ears, or lit up with crazy colors, wouldn’t you try them out? Maybe once?
But the senator didn’t want to talk about Spock ears. She wanted to talk about the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act, which she had co-sponsored. After its passage in 2017, it headed over to the Food and Drug Administration for guidelines on how it should be carried out.
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The F.D.A. is expected to issue those guidelines shortly, possibly as early as January. When it does, the world will change for millions of Americans with hearing loss.