Negotiating the price of hearing aids

I recently got my audiologist to price match like for like. I didn’t compare online sales with him because he is working in a high street shop. I negotiated more than a 10% saving. If I attempted to push him to match online sales the price would have come down another 15%. But that ain’t fair; I want and appreciate a shop presence.

When I was looking for my first pair of HAs 4 years ago I got very good service from an independent specialist shop on my local high street. I was about to buy a pair of Unitron North HAs for £2700 when I noticed my high street pharmacist chain was selling them for £900. I went back to the independent and offered to pay £1400, which I thought was a fair price considering the excellent service they had given. They were not open to negotiation and consequently lost my custom.

Don’t forget that the independent Audiologist might not see the same wholesale pricing as the chain.

If you’re in any doubt about this, the current P90 is actually on offer with Boots in the U.K. for £2495.00 which is pretty much what you’d pay for the aids directly from the wholesale Phonak price list.

This happens because Phonak are using their vertical integration to squeeze the margin to the independent because they can take their profit at any point in the supply line, depending on where they have the most ownership or declare the least tax. Whereas the independent can only take the margin they are allowed by the effective cartel pricing of hearing aids and has all of the local rent,rates, staff and tax which keeps your local economy growing.

It’s effectively shrinking the kind of business that operates on your doorstep, which means that you lose the employment and services near your home, which in turn makes it less likely that your local fish/Italian restaurant will survive. I guess that’s progress, as things are going at the minute.

I checked out Zip Hearing and was amazed to find that they are $2,000 cheaper than my audiologist !! I really like my audiologist but that is a huge savings. I will eventually ask if they can include an accessory like the connect clip or ask for a discount. I will be disappointed if they decline.

Back in the mid 1980’s when I first opened my practice, the Starkey rep stopped by to see how things were going. I told him everything was fine but his hearing aids were too expensive. He asked if 15% off would make me happy. I said sure. After thinking for a minute I said, “so I have been 15% more for a couple of years just because I did not bitch about the price?” His answer was “Yes”. It pays to ask.

@bluebillranch said:

There are plenty of audis willing to fit them for about $200 including REM.

This is a big no in my experience. Granted it’s been a few years that I actually asked a fitter to help but when I did, it was a big no. They made it clear, I had to buy the aids from them.

Those days for audis are pretty much over. In recent years I have dealt with 3 different audis and they all serviced my hearing aids. I just had an Audi replace the circuitry in one of my Resound Quattro for $250. I did not buy the hearing aid from him. I bought it on eBay about 2 years ago. I buy all my hearing aids on eBay at half price.

I would call message them to see if they do. I would think they do, but I don’t know for sure. It is extremely easy to communicate with them.

This is such a difficult topic. I have been with the same audiologist group for over 10 years and 3 hearing aids. I got excellent service from the group with sometime weekly visits. But they did charge me list prices. Now I am up for new HAs and trying to figure out what to do. Amazingly even though I am in the NYC area, I don’t see too many choices.

I use the same process when buying a car. If I don’t like the price I get up and leave

You should absolutely negotiate pricing - I just bought a pair of Oticon More’s for $3600(total with tax). I hav found that most audiologists bundle a bunch of “services” into their cost. I found an excellent audiologist in Minneapolis who doesn’t do that and also doesn’t believe in marking up aids 100 or more percent. When you get quoted a price - have them itemize all of the “bundled” costs included as I have found that you don’t need to use many of the so called services. Budget Hearing in Minneapolis is amazing! https://www.budgethearingcenters.com33

And the audiologist at Budget is very meticulous about tuning the Aids so they are perfect. The price is all inclusive.

Thanks for sharing this pricing info. Your impression of the More would also be very appreciated because it’s such a newly released model, so a lot of folks (including me) are keenly interested in how well it works and whether it performs up to the claims. But maybe put it in the Oticon More thread so it doesn’t become off topic in this thread.

What insurance pays anything let alone 95%?

It was the company health insurance I had when I was working for Intel. They didn’t go through a health insurance company. I think they were self-funded.

I guess hearing aids are not a common claim item, and on top of that, although they offer 95% hearing aid coverage for in-network providers, the caviat is that that’s only AFTER you have met your (normally very high) deductible (which was $7500 in my case). It just so happened that the stars were all aligned that year and I satisfied my high deductible by October already, so I had November to shop around and December to make the purchase.