Finding a bargain just feels great, right? It can be thrilling when you’ve found a great deal on something, and the bigger discount, the more pleased you are. It’s a little too easy, then, to make the price your chief consideration, to always choose the least expensive option, to let your coupons make your buying decisions for you. But chasing a bargain when it comes to buying hearing aids can be a big mistake.
If you need hearing aids to manage hearing loss, choosing the “cheapest” option can have health repercussions. Avoiding the development of health problems like depression, dementia, and the risk of a fall is the whole point of using hearing aids in the first place. The key is to choose the hearing aid that best suits your lifestyle, your hearing needs, and your budget.
Tips for picking affordable hearing aids
Cheap and affordable aren’t necessarily the same thing. Affordability, and functionality, are what you should be looking for. This will help you keep within your budget while enabling you to find the ideal hearing aids for your personal needs and budget. These tips will help.
You can get affordable hearing aids.
Hearing aids have a reputation for taking a toll on your pocketbook, a reputation, however, is not always reflected by reality. Most hearing aid makers will partner with financing companies to make the device more budget friendly and also have hearing aids in a variety of prices. If you’ve started exploring the bargain bin for hearing aids because you’ve already decided that really good effective models are out of reach, it could have serious health repercussions.
Tip #2: Find out what your insurance will cover
Insurance may cover some or all of the costs associated with getting a hearing aid. Some states, in fact, have laws mandating insurance companies to cover hearing aids for kids or adults. It never hurts to ask. There are government programs that often provide hearing aids for veterans.
Tip #3: Find hearing aids that can be calibrated to your hearing loss
Hearing aids are, in some ways, similar to prescription glasses. Depending on your sense of fashion, the frame comes in a few options, but the exact prescription differs greatly from person to person. Hearing aids, too, have distinct settings, which we can calibrate for you, tailored to your exact needs.
You won’t get the same results by grabbing some cheap hearing device from the clearance shelf (or, in many cases, results that are even remotely useful). These amplification devices increase all frequencies rather than raising only the frequencies you’re having trouble with. What’s the importance of this? Typically, hearing loss will only affect some frequencies while you can hear others perfectly fine. If you increase all frequencies, the ones you have no trouble hearing will be too loud. Simply put, it doesn’t really solve the problem and you’ll wind up not using the cheaper device.
Tip #4: Different hearing aids have different functions
It can be tempting to think that all of the modern technology in a good hearing aid is simply “bells and whistles”. But you will need some of that technology to hear sounds properly. Hearing aids have innovative technologies calibrated specifically for those who have hearing loss. Many modern designs have artificial intelligence that helps filter out background noise or connect with each other to help you hear better. Additionally, taking into account where (and why) you’ll be using your aids will help you select a model that fits your lifestyle.
It’s crucial, in order to compensate for your hearing loss in an efficient way, that you have some of this technology. A little speaker that cranks the volume up on everything is far from the sophistication of a modern hearing aid. Which brings up our last tip.
Tip #5: A hearing amplification device is not a hearing aid
Okay, say this with me: a hearing amplification device is not a hearing aid. If you take nothing else away from this article, we hope it’s that. Because the manufacturers of amplification devices have a financial interest in persuading the consumer that their devices do what hearing aids do. But that just isn’t true.
Let’s have a closer look. An amplifier:
- Gives the user the ability to control the basic volume but that’s about all.
- Turns the volume up on all sounds.
- Is often cheaply built.
On the other hand, a hearing aid:
- Can identify and boost specific sound categories (like the human voice).
- Can achieve maximum comfort by being molded to your ear.
- Will help you preserve the health of your hearing.
- Is adjusted specifically to your hearing loss symptoms by a highly skilled hearing professional.
- Can be programmed with various settings for different places.
- Can minimize background noise.
- Boosts the frequencies that you have a difficult time hearing and leaves the frequencies you can hear alone.
- Has batteries that are long lasting.
Your hearing deserves better than cheap
Everyone has a budget, and that budget is going to restrict your hearing aid choices regardless of what price range you’re looking in.
This is why an affordable solution tends to be the emphasis. When it comes to hearing loss, the long term benefits of hearing loss management and hearing aids is well documented. That’s why you should concentrate on an affordable solution. Don’t forget, cheap is less than your hearing deserves.”