Nobody understands their hearing benefit. That is by design.

The short version

Medicare Part B

Does not cover hearing aids. Does not cover hearing-aid-related services either. That is a limit written into the benefit in 1965 and never removed — not a limit of this practice.

Medicare Advantage and private plans

Vary enormously. A few carry a real dollar benefit. Many instead hand you access to a third-party discount program and call that a benefit.

TruHearing · Amplifon · Nations Hearing

If your plan routes its hearing benefit through one of these, you can spend it here. You are not obliged to take it to a national chain to use it.

Office visits

Hearing tests and hearing aid services — adjustments, cleanings, repairs, supplies — are not billed to insurance and carry a flat visit charge. Call and you will be told the figure before you come in.

Hearing aids themselves

May be billed through insurance where a benefit exists. Dr. Loschen checks your specific plan and tells you what it really provides before you commit to anything at all.

Why Medicare does not cover hearing aids

Because the statute that created Medicare in 1965 excluded them explicitly, alongside eyeglasses and routine dental care, and that exclusion has never been removed. It is not a coverage decision made about you, it is not something an appeal will fix, and it is not because your audiologist did not code it correctly. Medicare Part B does not pay for hearing aids or for hearing-aid-related services, and it has not for sixty years.

Some Medicare Advantage plans do offer a hearing benefit, which is one of the reasons they are marketed the way they are. Read the next section before assuming yours is worth what it appears to be.

“Hearing benefit” usually means a discount program

This is the part that catches most people out. A large number of plans advertising hearing coverage are not paying anything toward your devices. They are giving you access to a third-party program — TruHearing, Amplifon, Nations Hearing and others — which negotiates a fixed price on a restricted set of models and takes a margin for arranging it.

That can genuinely save money. It also comes with things worth knowing:

• The model selection is limited, and typically not the current top of any manufacturer’s line
• The number of follow-up visits included is capped, and follow-up is where fitting quality actually comes from
• Some programs steer you toward their own contracted locations

If your plan has one of these, you can use it at Island Hearing Services. Dr. Loschen will lay out what the program covers next to what it does not, and you decide.

What a visit costs

Office visits — hearing testing and hearing aid services such as adjustments, cleanings, repairs and supplies — are not billed to insurance and carry a flat office visit charge. You will be told the figure when you book, before you come in. Hearing aid purchases may be billed through insurance where a benefit exists.

Device prices are not listed on this website, for the plain reason that the right device depends on your audiogram, your ears and how you live — so a number posted without any of those is a guess. You get a real figure after an evaluation, in writing, with nothing attached to it.

Nobody is going to lean on you

There is no same-day-only price, no offer that expires on Friday, and no reason to decide anything in the room. You are welcome to take the figures home, talk them over, and come back — or not come back.

How hearing aids are chosen here · Book a visit