Veterans Administration Audiology Question

I got out of the Navy in 1977. I was told at my mustering out physical that I had some hearing loss. I didn’t go to the VA until 2004 when I was between jobs, and needed blood pressure medication that i couldn’t afford due to no insurance. I took a copy of my Navy medical records with me. Yes they gave me a copy of all of my Navy service records. The doctor that saw me gave me a partial physical that day walked me upstairs to the audiology clinic and said that I had a major hearing loss. I was given a simple hearing exam. Given appointments to come back for a full exam the next day. Send back down to the doctor I saw and was told to go to the pharmacy to get my medicine and given an appointment the next day for a complete lab workup and physical. The next day my medical records were scanned into the VA records system. I was told I needed hearing aids but at that time I had to be approved by the benefits board. That took almost 2 years before I got my aids.

I’m a Army Vet. I have tinnitus and bilateral hearing loss. They gave me Resound aids I think it was 2017. Then in 2021 they gave me new Resound One’s.
In 2022 I gave them to the Baton Rouge VA clinic to send back for repairs. They lost them for 2 and half months. I finally lI got them back and about a week ago my right one Oh and when I did get them back I had to go pay the postage to get them the VA didn’t only put $1.60 postage on them.

The Baton Rouge clinic was great for Audiology. They gave me Resound TV streamer and sound machine for sleeping they were good.
Then we lost our Audiologist in Baton Rouge. We had to call Audiology at the VA New Orleans hospital. I was told by the Audiologist that there was a hiring freeze and they couldn’t hire anyone. That was during the Biden days

A couple weeks ago my right hearing aid battery started running down fast.

I want to go to a outside Audiologist in the Baton Rouge area. The New Orleans VA is over a 220 mile trip for me. And I don’t go to NOLA it’s crazy down there.

Talk to the VA about referring you to a audiologist in your local area. You are over 50 miles from the clinic.

Just starting my VA HA journey but my initial appointment was awesome. The audiologist spent about an hour with me that didn’t include a full hearing test ( I had recently had one done as part of the qualifying process) and everything was covered in detail. I am being fitted for Oticon Intent 1’s in a few weeks.
The only problem with the VA is wait times for appointments. The initial appointment can take 3-4 months and the time from ordering to fitting in my case is about 5 weeks.