Hearing aids were unaffordable for three-fourths of Americans with functional hearing loss, and their purchase would result in impoverishment for hundreds of thousands of individuals. Reductions in out-of-pocket hearing aid costs to $500 or $1000 would alleviate affordability issues for many Americans with hearing loss. Future federal and state policy should address poor rates of insurance coverage for hearing care, specifically among Medicare and Medicaid, to reduce out-of-pocket costs for hearing care particularly for older adults.Implications for rehabilitationAn average out-of-pocket hearing care cost of $2500 was unaffordable for over three quarters of Americans with functional hearing loss.Hearing care affordability varied significantly by demographic characteristics such as age, sex, gender, educational attainment and geographic region.Affordability constitutes a significant barrier to hearing care accessibility in the United States, where most costs of hearing aids and rehabilitation are statutorily excluded from insurance coverage, including the largest insurer of Americans, Medicare.
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Jilla et al. (2020) studied this question.
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