How to Finance the High Prices of Hearing Aids
Hearing aids are expensive devices. A decent pair of hearing aids with basic features can cost in between $1,000 to $2,000 dollars.
With the price range averaging around $1,500 for a reasonably good hearing aid device, many people find it hard to pay off the expensive price of hearing aids in one go.
Many people resort to financing the cost of hearing aids with credit cards or taking a loan from bank.
Aside from the usual methods of using of credit card or taking a loan from bank, there are actually other ways to pay for the expensive hearing aids prices.
These are the less obvious ways to finance the cost of hearing aids. Most people don’t actually have an idea or have never heard of it before. You may or may not have heard of it also.
Nevertheless, find out from the following paragraphs about alternative ways on how to pay for the expensive hearing aids prices.
Check with Health Insurance Companies
Even though hearing aids are considered medical devices that are meant to treat hearing loss or any other hearing issues, most health insurance companies including Medicare don’t have coverage for hearing devices. The reason is that hearing aids are considered by most health insurance companies as prosthetic devices which are optional in some cases.
Despite the fact that health insurance companies don’t reimburse the expenses of hearing aids devices, some health insurance companies do provide partial coverage on the money spent on hearing aids and the cost of diagnosis. In some cases, if the hearing loss or any other hearing issues are caused by industry accidents or car accidents, the insurance companies will cover the entire cost of treatment including the hearing aids prices.
With that being said, it’s highly recommended for you to check with your health insurance companies whether their insurance policies do provide coverage for hearing devices. You should check with the company every year because most companies amend their insurance policies from year to year. You may never know that someday the insurance company will change its policy to cover the cost of hearing aids.
There is no harm in making a phone call to the company to ask whether hearing aids are covered under the existing policy.
Use Health Savings Account (HSA)
If your health insurance company doesn’t cover hearing aids, you may use your Health Savings Account (HSA) that utilizes pre-tax income to pay for the hearing aids. Health Savings Account is a popular alternative to health insurance that is usually offered by your employer, i.e. the company where you work with. Employee has the option of whether to accept HSA or not. Employees who opt for a high deductible health insurance policy will usually accept HSA.
HSA is independent of the company you work with and can be carried over from one employer to another in case you resign from one company and accept a new employment with another company. The benefit of HSA is that you will save a portion of your pre-tax income into this account which is mainly used for medical purpose. As a result, the more money you put into this account, the less the tax you will be paying.
The condition of using the HSA account to purchase hearing aids is that there must be enough savings in this account prior to buying the hearing aids.
Apply for a Low Interest Medical Credit
If you have run out of all options to pay for the hearing aids prices and the option of taking a loan from the bank or using your credit card to purchase the hearing aids seems imminent, you could apply for a medical credit from companies such as Care Credit or Medi Credit to pay for your hearing aids.
The advantage of doing so is that the interest rate from these companies is a lot lower than the interest rate offered by bank or credit cards. Even though you are still applying for a loan or using a credit from a bank, the interest is much lower compared to a conventional loan or using the regular credit card for the purchase.
Other benefit of using a medical credit is that you could spread out the repayment period into 2 to 3 year period which translate to a low monthly installment you could highly afford.
