Is AARP Becoming the Wal-Mart of Health Care?
Millions of Americans age 50 and over are familiar with the name, AARP, formally the American Association of Retired Persons. AARP is a non-profit entity. It disseminates information to its members via its monthly publication and website regarding issues such as health, finance, recreation, relationships, etc. AARP also contracts to provide retired persons insurance benefits to supplement their Medicare.
AARP makes hundreds of millions of dollars from marketing health insurance and is currently said to be brining in $657 million a year. Some of the money they bring in is used for lobbying. If you don’t already know this, AARP is the fourth highest spending lobbying group in Washington.
HearUSA was a buying group (middle man) and lobbied for insurance companies for the Audiology Profession. Previously all contracts were only with Dispensing Audiologists (hearing health care professionals with a Masters Degree or Doctorate in Audiology) in order to provide a high caliber of services to patients and insurance contracts they obtain.
In 2009, AARP joined forces with HearUSA, to provide discount hearing aids to the senior population. Because of this agreement between AARP and HearUSA, HearUSA pressured by the hearing aid industry (manufacturers) to include Hearing Aid Dispensers and to allow them to contract with both HearUSA specifically for the AARP contract. Hear USA had to lower the standards of professional care for this agreement to include contracting with Hearing Aid Dispensers. As stated earlier, audiologist have either a masters degree or doctorate (currently, all graduating audiologists must have a doctorate in order to enter the field). In the State of Arizona, a hearing aid dispenser is required to have a high school degree, or GED, 64 hours of supervised on the job training, and pass an exam to dispense hearing aids). HearUSA requests that dispensers are Board Certified, meaning they passed a standardized national exam.
So, why do I equate AARP with Wal-Mart? Wal-Mart is notorious for negotiating with manufacturers to purchase large amounts of a given product at extremely low prices. In order to compensate for this lower price, the manufacturer uses parts that aren’t as high in quality as they used for the original product and are barely able to make enough money to cover the cost of research and development for new products. In the HearUSA/AARP agreement this effect trickles down to the audiologist and hearing aid dispenser. HearUSA collects half the profit as a referral fee to the audiologist and hearing aid dispenser.
If this contract would have really made a difference in the number of people coming in to my office to get hearing aids, my company would be in serious financial trouble. Recently HearUSA filed for Chapter 11 in the state of Florida. William Demant, parent company for Oticon Hearing Aids, is a “stalking horse” bidder, meaning it is hoping to purchase HearUSA and bail it out of bankruptcy. According to Fox News, AARP is under fire over insurance income and quoted Rep. Charles Boustany, R-La, saying, “During this investigation, it became very clear that despite its privileged tax-exempt status, in many cases, AARP represents a for-profit entity.” Depending on the final outcome of the findings, AARP may have to split into a non-profit and profit entity, with the profit side dealing with insurance contracts.
By the way, as Medicare Replacement programs are disappearing, people will be forced to look for Medigap Insurance. AARP makes the most amount of money from this insurance plan.
Yours for better hearing!
Use of Over the Counter or Prescription Drugs to Prevent or Cure Hearing Loss
As an audiologist, I am often asked if there is a drug that can prevent hearing loss or restore hearing.
Currently 31 million people in United States have a hearing loss and at least 30 million people in the United States who are exposed to hazardous levels of noise at work. Those most at risk include those who work in construction, mining, agriculture, airplane pilots, musicians, manufacturing, transportation and the military (people in the military can suffer permanent hearing loss from just one explosive boom.). Other people at risk are people with noisy hobbies such as: wood working, lapidary work, hunters, motor boaters, ATV riders, motor cycle riders (especially Harley fans with loud mufflers), etc.
Anticonvulsive Medications Used to Prevent or Recover Hearing Loss
In 2007, Jianxin Bao, Ph.D., head researcher and research associate professor of otolaryngology and head of the Central Institute for the Deaf's Presbycusis and Aging Laboratory, found two anti-epileptic drugs can prevent permanent hearing loss to a significant degree in mice exposed to loud noises.
These drugs include: trimethadione (Tridione®) or ethosuximide (Zarontin®), which are normally anticonvulsive medications used to treat epilepsy.
When mice got the medications before noise exposure, only trimethadione, not ethosuximide, significantly reduced subsequent hearing loss.
By 2009, these two anticonvulsive drugs had already received FDA approval and so could be used right away in clinical trials that study hearing loss.
These drugs have shown to prevent approximately 5 dB of changes in how loud one has to make a sound for it to be perceived. On one scale, it’s not a whole lot, but for someone already suffering from hearing loss, it could be substantial. The bad news is that these drugs can have some unwanted side effects, such as dizziness and sleepiness. The drugs' side effects could be really bad in certain situations,
Other anticonvulsive drugs are being studied for their positive effects on hearing without the negative side effects.
http://www.drf.org/magazine/38/Winter+2010+Issue/article/301
Water-Soluable Coenzyme Q10
I recently received an article from a friend and colleague, Dr. James Bogash (Chiropractor, Life Care Chiropractic, Mesa, AZ) citing work done to evaluate just that possibility. Although more studies may be needed, the outlook of this study is positive. Through diagnostic testing they found people who have a high frequency hearing loss were able to improve their ability to hear between 1000 and 8000 hertz. These frequencies are important for understanding speech.
Now remember, this study says it improves hearing at these frequencies, it does not report that it restores hearing to normal levels.
Another question to be asked is, “Can using this drug prevent further loss of hearing?”
http://www.prohealth.com/library/showarticle.cfm?libid=15812
Remember; always check with your physician or pharmacist before adding supplements or over the counter medication to your current medications to avoid bad drug interactions.
You should also schedule for a series of diagnostic hearing tests before you begin any treatment so proof of benefit can be documented.
Yours for better hearing!
