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Hearing Loss: Come introduce yourself and connect with others

Posted by Colleen Young, Connect Director @colleenyoung, Feb 5, 2019

Welcome to the Hearing Loss group on Mayo Clinic Connect.
This is a welcoming, safe place where you can meet people living with hearing loss, and friends and family supporters. Whether you were born deaf or hard of hearing, experienced hearing loss after birth or with aging, it helps to connect with others. Together we can learn from each other, support one another and share stories about living with hearing loss, coping with challenges and celebrating milestones.

Let’s chat. Why not start by introducing yourself? What is your hearing loss experience? Got a question, tip or story to share?

Interested in more discussions like this? Go to the Hearing Loss Support Group.

arrowshooter | @arrowshooter | 1 day ago
In reply to @daveshaw "If you or anyone else is a veteran they offer excellent hearing aids at an extremely..." + (show)
@daveshaw

If you or anyone else is a veteran they offer excellent hearing aids at an extremely low cost to you. Take advantage of that and thank you for your service. Two veterans I know are extremely happy with their hearing aids. Talk to your audiologist and she can check out what is available for you. I was not aware how high pressure the CI industry is and seeing an out of network audiologist who could have very easily recommended I get CI’s since she deals with both was very refreshing.
Good luck.

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Yes, VA provides very good audiology care IF you are. a good self advocate . They provide top-of-the line hearing aids and accessories. Cost depends on circumstances. It depends on whether or not a veteran has a service connected disability and other factors. I have seen about 6 or 8 audiologists in VA and the same in private practice. Each one I've seen has been a caring and competent professional. But in both VA and private practice one must be a good self advocate.

VA has different (higher) thresholds for CI qualification than Medicare and Social Security. One of them is that you must have greater than a 50dB loss at 500 hz and an average loss of greater than 70dB over the 500hz, 1000hz, 2000hz, and 4000hz range. For many years my average loss was greater than 70 dB but my low frequency loss was too high to qualify for a CI in VA. But I did qualify for a CI under Medicare standards. Additionally VA did their speech recognition test without noise. Other audiologists did speech recognition with noise. Now my word recognition scores are in the low 30% range bilaterally and I have been referred for a CI evaluation. Because VA is short staffed they are sending me to Community Care (a private practice audiologist) for that evaluation all paid for by VA.

I checked on private audiology clinics who do CI evaluations locally and the biggest one is not taking CI evaluation patients because of a staffing shortage. Wait time is considerable in the other two local (less than 50 miles away) clinics. Other clinics are 100 -300 miles away. VA pays travel expense though.

So I have the choice of going through Medicare or VA (Community Care). But the biggest consideration remains "Do I want to go ahead with getting a CI or not?" . I know enough sign language to get by, but I'm not fluent because I'm not a frequent user. That's an entirely different community who uses ASL.

These are just my experiences. One would assume that VA uses the same standards throughout the country. THEY DON'T. But I highly encourage veterans to consider VA for their audiology care. But VA or private practice, it is important to be an "informed patient" and a strong self advocate. Mayo Connect helps with that.

Jim

REPLY
1 reply
daveshaw | @daveshaw | 1 day ago
In reply to @arrowshooter "Yes, VA provides very good audiology care IF you are. a good self advocate . They..." + (show)
@arrowshooter

Yes, VA provides very good audiology care IF you are. a good self advocate . They provide top-of-the line hearing aids and accessories. Cost depends on circumstances. It depends on whether or not a veteran has a service connected disability and other factors. I have seen about 6 or 8 audiologists in VA and the same in private practice. Each one I've seen has been a caring and competent professional. But in both VA and private practice one must be a good self advocate.

VA has different (higher) thresholds for CI qualification than Medicare and Social Security. One of them is that you must have greater than a 50dB loss at 500 hz and an average loss of greater than 70dB over the 500hz, 1000hz, 2000hz, and 4000hz range. For many years my average loss was greater than 70 dB but my low frequency loss was too high to qualify for a CI in VA. But I did qualify for a CI under Medicare standards. Additionally VA did their speech recognition test without noise. Other audiologists did speech recognition with noise. Now my word recognition scores are in the low 30% range bilaterally and I have been referred for a CI evaluation. Because VA is short staffed they are sending me to Community Care (a private practice audiologist) for that evaluation all paid for by VA.

I checked on private audiology clinics who do CI evaluations locally and the biggest one is not taking CI evaluation patients because of a staffing shortage. Wait time is considerable in the other two local (less than 50 miles away) clinics. Other clinics are 100 -300 miles away. VA pays travel expense though.

So I have the choice of going through Medicare or VA (Community Care). But the biggest consideration remains "Do I want to go ahead with getting a CI or not?" . I know enough sign language to get by, but I'm not fluent because I'm not a frequent user. That's an entirely different community who uses ASL.

These are just my experiences. One would assume that VA uses the same standards throughout the country. THEY DON'T. But I highly encourage veterans to consider VA for their audiology care. But VA or private practice, it is important to be an "informed patient" and a strong self advocate. Mayo Connect helps with that.

Jim

Jump to this post

I have never been a veteran but I find it very disappointing that for those who choose to serve our country the standards for being eligible for a CI can vary from state to state. I live in Colorado and the person I talked to was a Dentist who served in Vietnam in the Navy.
I have also heard horror stories about VA care in this country. I have also heard horror stories about healthcare in this country.
You are right that you have to be a strong advocate for yourself.
The only time I had a hearing test with noise was when I went out of network to an audiologist at a local hospital. In network audiologists are overworked and understaffed. My out of network audiologist gave me far more extensive testing than I had ever received before. She was also far more knowledgeable when it came to adjusting my hearing aids.
Good luck to you and others out there looking for high quality care.

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