News
Expand Patient Access to Hearing Aids/Support Fairness in Hearing Aid Dispensing
2/19/2010
Please support a change to General Business Law 802 that would strike the restriction on physicians who perform evaluations of hearing loss from deriving a profit from the sales of hearing aids. The current law is anti-consumer, anti-business, and anti-competition.
Hearing aid consumers in New York are currently limited in their choice of treatment providers due to a law that has virtually eliminated hearing aid sales in physicians' offices.
New York state law places an unworkable restriction on physicians' offices, whereby they are not permitted to derive any profit from hearing aid sales, though dispensing audiologists and hearing aid dealers are able to do so. These profits are a necessary component of a provider's fee and pay for the cost of testing and equipment, follow-up services and adjustments, and overhead (inventory, rent, salaries, etc.).
Since few, if any, physicians offer hearing aid services because doing so is not economically feasible, the law essentially creates a mandatory referral to independent audiologists and hearing aid dispensers, who have NO restrictions on what they can charge patients. Repealing this restriction would:
Expand patient choice and access to hearing aids and related services, and allow patients to determine the best provider for their individual needs.
Increase competition among hearing aid providers, potentially lowering the cost of hearing aids for patients.
Enable patients to have continuity of care and services within their physicians' offices, which is especially helpful for patients dealing with complex otological medical cases and implantable prostheses.
Bring New York in line with the 49 other states that place no economic restrictions on hearing aid sales by physicians.
Create jobs within medical offices to staff and support new hearing aid services.
This effort is supported by the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, American Medical Association, American Osteopathic Association, American Osteopathic College of Ophthalmology and Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, American Otological Society, Ear Professionals International Corporation, Medical Society of the State of New York, New York State Osteopathic Medical Society, and New York State Society of Otolaryngology.
For more information, contact Barbara Ellman at bellman@mssny.org or 518-465-8085.