Finding a bargain just feels great, right? Getting a good deal can be exhilarating, and more rewarding the better the deal. So letting your coupon make your shopping choices for you, always chasing after the least expensive products, is all too easy. When it comes to buying a pair of hearing aids, chasing a bargain can be a huge mistake.
Health repercussions can result from choosing the cheapest option if you require hearing aids to manage hearing loss. After all, the entire point of getting hearing aids is to be able to hear well and to prevent health issues related to hearing loss including mental decline, depression, and an increased chance of falls. The trick is to find the hearing aid that best suits your lifestyle, your hearing needs, and your budget.
Picking affordable hearing aids – some tips
Cheap and affordable aren’t necessarily the same thing. Look for affordability as well as functionality. That will help you get the best hearing aid possible for your individual budget. These tips will help.
You can get affordable hearing aids.
Hearing aids have a reputation for putting a dent in your pocketbook, a reputation, however, is not necessarily reflected by reality. The majority of manufacturers sell hearing aids in a wide range of price points and work with financing companies to make their devices more affordable. If you’ve started searching 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 consequences.
Tip #2: Ask what’s covered
Some or even all of the expense of hearing aids may be covered by your insurance. Some states, in fact, have laws requiring insurance companies to cover hearing aids for kids or adults. Asking never hurts. There are government programs that frequently supply hearing aids for veterans.
Tip #3: Your hearing loss is unique – find hearing aids that can tune to your hearing situation
Hearing aids are, in some aspects, similar to prescription glasses. The frame is fairly universal (depending on your sense of style, of course), but the prescription is calibrated for your distinct needs. Hearing aids, too, have distinct settings, which we can calibrate for you, tailored to your precise needs.
Purchasing a cheap hearing device from the clearance shelf won’t give you the same benefits (or any useful results at all in many cases). These are more like amplifiers that increase the sound of all frequencies, not only the ones you’re having trouble hearing. What’s the significance of this? Hearing loss is usually irregular, you can hear some frequencies and sounds, but not others. If you make it loud enough to hear the frequencies that are too quiet, you’ll make it painful in the frequencies you can hear without amplification. 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 capabilities
It can be tempting to think that all of the modern technology in a quality hearing aid is simply “bells and whistles”. But you will need some of that technology to hear sounds clearly. The sophisticated technology in hearing aids can be tuned in to the user’s level of hearing loss. Many modern designs have artificial intelligence that helps filter out background noise or communicate with each other to help you hear better. In addition, considering where (and why) you’ll be using your aids will help you choose a model that fits your lifestyle.
That technology is necessary to compensate for your hearing loss in a healthy way. A little speaker that turns the volume up on everything is far from the sophistication of a modern hearing aid. And that brings us to our last tip.
Tip #5: A hearing amplification device isn’t a hearing aid
Alright, repeat after me: a hearing amplification device is not a hearing aid. This is the number one takeaway from this article. Because the manufacturers of amplification devices have a monetary interest in convincing the consumer that their devices work like hearing aids. But that’s untruthful marketing.
Let’s take a closer look. A hearing amplification device:
- Turns the volume up on all sounds.
- Gives the user the ability to control the basic volume but that’s about all.
- Is typically cheaply built.
A hearing aid, on the other hand:
- Will help safeguard your hearing health.
- Is set up specifically to your hearing loss symptoms by a highly qualified hearing specialist.
- Can be molded specifically to your ears for optimal comfort.
- Can reduce background noise.
- Has long-lasting batteries.
- Can pick out and boost specific sound types (like the human voice).
- Can be programmed with various settings for different places.
- Is calibrated to amplify only the frequencies you have a hard time hearing.
Your ability to hear is too crucial to go cheap
Everybody has a budget, and that budget is going to limit your hearing aid options no matter what price range you’re looking in.
This is why an affordable option tends to be the emphasis. When it comes to hearing loss, the long term advantages of hearing loss treatment and hearing aids is well documented. This is why an affordable solution is what your focus should be. Don’t forget, cheap is less than your hearing deserves.”