In the interview above, Dr. Sheryl Figliano shares some of the most common misconceptions about hearing aids.
Misconception #1: Hearing aids are great big orange things behind your ears
It’s just yesterday’s news. It’s like having a bag phone. The technology has made them smaller and programmable for you, just like an eyeglass prescription and they can fix your problem so that you can hear easily. And it’s not frustrating for the person listening or the speaker.
Misconception #2: Hearing aids are expensive and not affordable.
Anyone that has a hearing loss that comes into any of our offices will not leave without help. They’re either going to pay cash for their hearing aids, or by check, credit card, or financing. We have two different companies that will finance them. Both companies have a 12 months, no interest plans. And for those patients who need a little extra help because they are in a deep financial crisis, we have option to support them as well. I’ll give you an example. I had a patient come in today and they said, “we don’t have any money for hearing aids.”
We called and checked their insurance. They had an insurance benefits and didn’t even know about it. So they have put off getting help for their hearing for all these years and it didn’t even dawn on them to call the number on the back of their insurance card to ask “do I have some kind of coverage for hearing aids?” I think also a lot of people are just misinformed.
Misconception #3: Hearing aids are like cars. You can get a Cadillac and hearing aids that you don’t need.
Well, it happens all the time that patients will come in and I always ask them, why now? You’ve clearly had this hearing loss for years and they’ll say to me, Oh, I heard they’re all expensive. Well, what’s expensive. I heard they’re $6,000. We do have hearing aids that are $6,000. We have hearing aids that are $7,000. That’s for a pair. But let me tell you, they are very specialized products and we don’t sell that. Many of them, what are they for? They also have somewhat of an alarm system in them. So if someone is afraid of falling and they live alone, as long as they have a Bluetooth phone that they can connect to, if they fall down, it’s going to immediately signal their family and give them a GPS coordinate of wherever they have fallen.
It might be Target. It might be McDonald’s. It might be in their own home. And they can’t get up to call to alert someone that they’ve fallen. They have heart monitors in them. Those are the hearing aids that are that expensive. I had a woman two weeks ago in our Liberty office. And she said, I have put away $600 toward my hearing aids. I’d like to put that down on them and make payments to pay for the rest. And I don’t want to spend more than $2,000. Beautiful. It makes my day when patients can come in and say, this is what I want to spend. This is what I want the hearing aid to do. And you know, I’ve put aside this budget. And again, if you’re truly, truly in financial need, you need to come in and see us because I know we’re the only office in Northeastern, Ohio that has a foundation that will help you.
I can show you that you’ll be able to hear better. We’re going to order something in custom made for you. You’re going to get hearing aids from a locally owned business where the owner gives you their cell numbers so that if you have a problem on the weekend, or you have a question at night, you can text me and call me. I want to help you. I don’t want you to get stuck with something that is not going to help you or worse yet could make your hearing loss get worse because they have too much sound coming into them. They can damage your hearing.