Time for New Ear Trumpets
It's been 3 years...
So the warranty on hearing aids is 3 years, and for very good reason: things get weird after that long. I'm getting a buncha issues that sound like crappy speakers or lousy power supplies. After ruling out physio changes (I had a small wire inserted in a bone in one ear, helped quite a bit) the conclusion was it's time for the usual $3k upgrade.
Now let me dispel a rumor: Health insurance advertises “we pay 80%.” First off, they only pay that to providers who've paid the enormous fee to become “providers.” This is a +a lot on prices. Second, in spite of no info in advance, they actually only pay 80% of the 2nd cheapest model. No amount of querying will reveal this before purchase commitment, and no amount of legal wrangling will change it after you've laid out some serious cash. They use a series of roadblocks, the last and insurmountable one is they told you when you agreed to the terms of service that they would never accurately predict what their payment would be in advance. Take that, and the clause that lets them unilaterally change the terms of the contract and poof. Trapped.
So by that route, given some basic requirements, I'd be on the hook for $6k and I might get about $1.6k back someday when insurance paid, well dear reader it was back to Costco.
Please do not construe this as any endorsement. When you buy hearing aids, what you're really buying is the tuner. The industry is entirely centered around the dispensers' profit, helping you hear is just a side effect. That means most places charge for tweaks after an arbitrary period (30-90 days or n-visits). Costco is free for the warranty period, as often as you like.
And since they're always pretty much fried by the end of their warranty, that solves that.
And so we melt our FSA accounts again.
One More Thing: hearing aids, at their best, sound like an old portable AM radio. You get stereo, ok, but it's tinny. This makes sense, hearing aids are all about small and long battery life. Low frequencies are a luxury, you need the highs to tell a “p” from a “b.” Thing is, I really miss bass. And it would enrich my life a lot to be able to hear the lows. Until I make my own. For now, turn your sources down, wear ear plugs, and treat ear infections seriously because there's no fix and aside from smell, it's you're only broadcast non-contact sense.