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Aetna Medicare Advantage coverage for hearing aids

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I’m looking for comments about the coverage for hearing aids. Has anyone had recent experience they can report about?

Thanks,
Nancy

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I believe it depends on what plan you have. I also believe Aetna subs out to NationsHearing and covers up to approx. 50% of the cost of the aids, depending on your plan.

Ok. There are many Medicare Advantage plans that cover hearing aids but having to call their customer service to ask what is their hearing aids benefits. My healthcare provider has a contract with Truhearing which sucks because l only can buy Truhearing private brand hearing aids at 399 dollars copay for advanced aids and 699 dollars copay for premium aids. These aids are made by Signa and none of the private brand aids can help me due to my profound hearing loss. I had to buy Phonak Naida Paradise U70 aids from an online seller.

Aetna has “Nations Hearing” so I was wondering if it’s any good. Beginning to think Costco is the best option and not think about hearing aid coverage via MA plans.

Never heard of Nation Hearing. you need to compare Nation Hearing benefits vs Costco hearing aid services.

In reply to @Nancydrew

Nancydrew - I don’t know if you’re still interested in info about Naitons Hearing.

I posted a question today about purchased through Nations Hearing (https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/do-phonak-aids-bought-thru-nations-hearing-have-code-protection/73286). My question may not be relevant for you unless you’re interested in programming like me. Even if you’re not, maybe the following information can be helpful:

The closest city where I live (pop. about 175K) has only one Nations Hearing provider who is an audiologist; the other Nations Hearing providers have only hearing specialists. So Nations Hearing can be limiting if you want to see an audiologist.

My Medicare Advantage plan through Aetna a $1250 annual benefit per HA through Nations Hearing. If you go to a Nations Hearing provider, you’ll get 3 free fittings. You can choose to go to a provider out-of-network, but in that case that provider must purchase your HAs through Nations Hearing, and you may have to pay for fitting appointments with that provider.

The price structure of HAs through Nations Hearing is far from transparent: They offer no online catalog so you can’t see what price level a given HA is going to cost. You can call Nations Hearing and ask and they’ll tell you. From several calls, it looks like the $1250 benefit per ear applies pretty much dollar-for-dollar for entry-level hearing aids, but not for more advanced aids. For example, a pair of Phonak Lumity L-70s are tagged with a price of $6,000. When you apply your two-ear Nations Hearing benefit to this, you’d end up paying (at this time) $3,500, which is only about $1000 less than you may be able to find L-70s elsewhere (so you’re not receiving a full $2500 benefit).

Hope this helps.

Glad if some of the information is helpful. Did you end up getting through Nations Hearing? My experience with them so far is OK, though they’re inefficient when it comes to making clear to their insurance members how much different HAs are going to cost them out-of-pocket.

It’s great that you’ve found hearing aids that you like. I have a couple of friends who’ve been very happy with their Costco hearing aids. It does seem as though, for many people, MA insurance for hearing aids doesn’t help very much. Although I’m still insured through Aetna, it looks like I can find top quality hearing aids outside of their plan that will cost me less than their copay would.

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