When it comes to coverage for your hearing aids and assistive technology, it’s important to fully understand how third-party hearing aid payers work – like United Healthcare Hearing, TruHearing, Nation’s Hearing, or Hearing Care Solutions.
While these are often marketed as benefits in your insurance plan, assisting with hearing health costs, they’re often aiming to reduce costs for the insurance company instead of your costs as an individual.
Some insurance plans encourage you to join their policy— and give a good illusion of benefits. However, they are often partnered with standalone vendors that are independent of the insurance company, and individuals are often able to access aid with or without their associated insurance policy. While we may be in network with your insurance provider, it is NOT a benefit that gets filed with your insurance – it is a discount plan that is filed with the vendor that the insurer has contracted with that year.
If you’re considering hearing aids to help optimize your hearing capabilities, it’s crucial that you know the best options for financing this premium investment into your hearing health.
How Do Third-Party Hearing Aid Payers Work?
Third-party hearing aid payers are often restricted to providers associated with the vendor, so you’ll be restricted to specific providers. If you have a preferred audiologist, you might not be able to see them for your care.
Your selection of technology will also be limited and might not meet your specific needs for your hearing; quite often, this narrow selection consists of older models of hearing aids that don’t feature some of the advanced innovations in modern technology.
Initial prices may be lower, but additional services—repairs, adjustments, replacements, and other follow-up care—will add up in cost, especially if you’re traveling to visit the specific vendor.
How Does This Impact Your Care?
Third-party hearing aid payers are typically designed to minimize costs for the insurance company you work through, meaning your patient care and satisfaction might be glossed over in the pursuit of less money spent. While they can be alluring at first, third-party hearing aid payers ultimately restrict your access to quality care, which can lead to frustrations with affiliated third-party providers that may not lead with the same gold-standard practices as your preferred audiologist.
For example, UHC Hearing provides attractive “benefits” to your hearing healthcare, but narrows down your choices to affiliated providers, or UHC Hearing themselves, so you don’t get a choice in who you go to for your hearing care. And while these providers provide the technology, the follow up care is not always as extensive.
Reduced care combined with limited options for technology can impact your overall experience with hearing healthcare and lead to unmet expectations for your quality of life and listening experience.
Understanding these factors about third-party hearing aid payers can help you make a more informed decision regarding your hearing healthcare and ensure that you’re investing in quality technology and care.
Explore Hearing Care with Aim Hearing
No matter what your hearing health needs, our team is ready to help you with your concerns and questions.
Sometimes it’s worth it to spend a little extra to get gold-standard care that puts your needs first!
To learn more about what our team of audiologists can do to assist you on your hearing health journey, please don’t hesitate to request a callback, and we’ll get in touch as soon as we can to help.
Don’t want to wait?
Give us a call at (336) 295-1064 for a more immediate chat.
