It just feels great to save money, right? It can be invigorating when you’ve found a great deal on something, and the larger discount, the more pleased you are. It’s a little too easy, then, to make the price your primary criteria, to always choose the least expensive option, to let your coupons make your consumer decisions for you. When it comes to buying a pair of hearing aids, going after a bargain can be a big oversight.
If you require hearing aids to manage hearing loss, going for the “cheapest” option can have health repercussions. After all, the whole point of getting hearing aids is to be able to hear well and to prevent health issues related to hearing loss like mental decline, depression, and an increased risk of falls. Finding the right hearing aid to suit your hearing needs, lifestyle, and budget is the key.
Tips for finding affordable hearing aids
Affordable is not the same thing as cheap. Keep an eye on affordability as well as functionality. This will help you keep within your budget while allowing you to find the ideal hearing aids for your personal requirements and budget. These are helpful tips.
You can get affordable hearing aids.
Hearing aid’s reputation for being extremely expensive is not always reflected in the reality of the situation. Most hearing aid manufacturers 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 searching the bargain bin for hearing aids because you’ve already decided that really good effective models are out of reach, it could have significant health consequences.
Tip #2: Ask what’s covered
Some or even all of the cost of hearing aids could be covered by your insurance. Actually, some states mandate that insurance cover them for both children and adults. Asking never hurts. If you’re a veteran, you might be eligible for hearing aids through government programs.
Tip #3: Your hearing loss is unique – choose hearing aids that can calibrate to your hearing situation
Hearing aids are, in some aspects, similar to prescription glasses. The frame is pretty universal (depending on your sense of fashion, of course), but the prescription is adjusted for your particular needs. Hearing aids, too, have specific settings, which we can calibrate for you, tailored to your precise needs.
You’re not going to get the same results by grabbing some cheap hearing device from the clearance shelf (or any useful results at all in many instances). These amplification devices boost all frequencies rather than raising only the frequencies you’re having trouble with. Why is this so important? Hearing loss is often uneven, you can hear some frequencies and voices, 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 end up not using the cheaper device.
Tip #4: Not all hearing aids have the same features
It can be tempting to believe 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 clearly. The sophisticated technology in hearing aids can be tuned in to the user’s level of hearing loss. Background noise can be filtered out with many of these modern models and some can connect with each other. Also, choosing a model that fits your lifestyle will be easier if you take into account where (and why) you’ll be using your hearing aids.
It’s essential, in order to compensate for your hearing loss in an efficient way, that you have some of this technology. A little speaker that turns the volume up on everything is far from the sophistication of a modern hearing aid. Which brings up our last tip.
Tip #5: An amplification device is not the same thing as a hearing aid
Okay, repeat after me: a hearing amplification device is not a hearing aid. If you get nothing else from this article, we hope it’s that. Because hearing amplification devices try very hard to make you believe they work the same way as a hearing aid for a fraction of the cost. But that’s untruthful marketing.
Let’s take a closer look. A hearing amplification device:
- Is usually built cheaply.
- Takes all sounds and makes them louder.
- Gives the user the ability to control the basic volume but that’s about all.
A hearing aid, on the other hand:
- Can minimize background noise.
- Will help protect your hearing health.
- Is adjusted specifically to your hearing loss symptoms by a highly qualified hearing professional.
- Can be molded specifically to your ears for optimal comfort.
- Has long-lasting batteries.
- Can identify and amplify specific sound categories (like the human voice).
- Boosts the frequencies that you have a difficult time hearing and leaves the frequencies you can hear alone.
- Has the ability to change settings when you change locations.
Your ability to hear is too crucial to go cheap
No matter what your budget is, that budget will determine your options depending on your general price range.
That’s why we often highlight the affordable part of this. The long-term advantages of hearing aids and hearing loss management are well recognized. That’s why you should work on an affordable solution. Just remember that your hearing deserves better than “cheap.”
