Hear, Here

I spoke to a Chiropractor friend of mine earlier this week. By 3:30 p.m., his office had already seen 56 patients. I can't imagine seeing 56 patients in one day! But that's a fairly normal day for this doctor. People come to him for relief from pain, among other things. After he adjusts them, they feel better, which is obviously the reason people continue to make their follow-up appointments. Which got me thinking. What would people do if hearing loss was painful? I'm not talking about ear infections and the like. I'm talking about normal (physically) pain-free sensorineural hearing loss that plagues most people with hearing loss. If the treatment involved temporary relief from pain until the next time, would there be more adopters of treatment by way of hearing aids? I'm not saying I wish hearing loss hurt; what I'm saying is I think it would be easier to convince someone with a newly diagnosed hearing loss to take that next step towards amplification if the

I got a call this morning from a representative for a 'discount' hearing aid plan we somehow got affiliated with because we accept the insurance plan they are affiliated with. This has become a pretty regular thing and ,while I don't always care for their policies and procedures, it seems to be the 'wave of the future' so I am doing my best to accept this trend in the industry. This representative was very nice, telling me she had a patient she wanted to schedule for a hearing test and hearing aid consult. I got the patient's name, address, date of birth, and other necessary information I needed to schedule her appointment and then I asked the rep for the patient's type of insurance and their primary care doctor. She asked me why I needed that information and I explained that I would need to get an order from their physician so I could bill their insurance for the hearing test. To which she replied, "you will not be able to bill for the hearing test.