New Hearing Aids

It's amazing how helpful Kaiser-Permanente staff are when you are enrolled in the Medicare Advantage program instead of the usual working person's Kaiser coverage. Almost three years ago I had my ears tested and found that i needed hearing aids. However, at that time my benefit was $500 per ear per 3 years. Although we would have liked to get the high end of aids, our budget just wouldn't stretch that far. Besides, I was still hearing most sounds and most people.

This year with my hearing a little worse and my coverage a little better I was able to get a much better (more expensive, too) hearing aid for both ears. In the picture above, the aid on the left is my old hearing aid and the one on the right is my new aid. In the old one all the electronics are in the pink enclosure. The semi-transparent plastic part allows for an amplified sound tunnel from the electronical hearing aid and an unamplified tunnel from the outside world. And it helps hold the entire aid in place.

With the new aid, the electronics are split with the digital sound amplification in the brown and gold piece and the silver cylinder as the speaker. The tube from the amplifier into the ear now carries a wire, not just a tube. Surrounding the silver speaker is a clear speaker baffle which keeps the ear from damping the speaker and also lets live sounds through from the outside world. Placing non-active aids in the ear produces no noticable decrease in sound volume. The last part of the aid is a tiny nylon string that is curled up along the bottom inside of the ear to provide the small amount of tension needed to keep the aid in place.

I wonder what will be available 3 years from now (probably what is now available in Kansas!).