On Friday night, CBC aired a two minute segment on how much it costs to make a hearing aid. While I was watching this piece I was feeling so stunned that this journalistic practice was going on. In the piece they mentioned that they contacted the National Organization of Audiologists, who referred them to business owners and basically they said that they couldn’t get any straight answers. I contacted our National Association who said they spent two hours on the phone with the journalists talking about hearing aid pricing and what goes into it to drive the price up, but they neglected to air any of the real information. They just wanted a sensational bit to get people fired up about the cost of hearing aids. And, the other thing that bothered me was the woman who had her hearing aid in the drawer and how she said she spent $3000 on that aid. Looking at the aid, it looked like it was circa 1990 and there is just no way that aid would have cost that amount in that year. Another exaggeration.
It was a good lesson for me in skepticism with the media. They are just trying to get customers as much as any business is and will stoop to sensational practice to do so.
So, for anyone wondering how much it actually costs to build a hearing aid let me use pharmaceuticals as an analogy. The actual pill does not cost upwards of $50 per pill, it is the research and development behind the drug as well as the small market penetration that drives up the price. The same is true in the hearing instrument industry. Oticon, who just released a new hearing aid, reported spending US $50 million on the research and development behind it. Another big factor is in dividing that cost between the relatively few users of hearing aids (as compared to cell phones for example). As well, every three years they are spending another $50 million in development of something new.
Then there is the cost of the Audiologist. Yes, many clinics bundle the cost of the aids with the cost of the services and there is good reason for that. We want people to have a good, positive experience with their technology and part of that is in the fine tuning of the devices. When we do an initial hearing aid fitting, we set it up for people to test out in their real world environments. Then, they return and report their observations, and we tweak it to improve it. Sometimes, it takes many appointments to nail down the right prescription for each individual’s listening preferences. If someone had to pay for each follow up separately, they might be inclined not to come in and then they have spent a great deal on the aids, which are not tuned properly and then end up in the drawer.
An independent journalist wrote an article for AARP which breaks down the cost and can be found at http://www.aarp.org/health/conditions-treatments/info-05-2011/hearing-aids-cost.html
The other point is that there is a huge range in hearing aid pricing from $600/aid up to $3200 per aid. If pricing is priority, there are options for that. You just have to let that be known.
For more information on different hearing aid options visit our hearing-aids page.