Audiologist said....

SkullChick

SkullChick

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Well I emailed my audiologist to ask few question mainly about my issue with hearing aid and she told me this " Stop using it......I am guessing that you get no benefit from a hearing aid and we will try to test you without using one at all. I will also relay this medical concern to Dr. T (my surgeon)" and I asked if she's sure about it since I thought hearing test with best aided condition is required for insurance to pay and stuff and she said " If there is no noted benefit from hearing aids, the test is still valid. WE just needed to try...and you tried. I don't want you to be uncomfortable, so stop using it as you have tried long enough." So look like trying out hearing aid is more important than hearing test on best aided condition and if surgeon agree with her then I don't know what that mean maybe mean I'm candidate??? Eek I'm getting nervous hope I am. Lol one more week till my appt with her and don't know if still need do test with ha if surgeon still want to or do test without ha, we'll see.
 
Have you been counseled and realize and understand that if you have the CI done and it doesn't work, any residual hearing is gone and can never be regained?
 
pek1 said:
Have you been counseled and realize and understand that if you have the CI done and it doesn't work, any residual hearing is gone and can never be regained?
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Yes I'm fully aware of it since I'm getting it done on my worse ear I don't have anything to lose really and hearing aid is too painful for my better ear so I don't have much choice and I want to hear so I'm giving this a shot
 
Did u ask your audiologists those questions that u asked in your post? If your audi is not answering your questions or concerns then maybe she is not doing her job of being there for u with your questions and concerns.
 
shel90 said:
Did u ask your audiologists those questions that u asked in your post? If your audi is not answering your questions or concerns then maybe she is not doing her job of being there for u with your questions and concerns.
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Yes I asked all questions to her I copied her exact response.
 
Yeah. In general, if you are not showing benefit from hearing aids it lends support to your CI candidacy, since the CI is designed for those who get little or no benefit from hearing aids.

Hope you get your approval soon!
 
R2D2 said:
Yeah. In general, if you are not showing benefit from hearing aids it lends support to your CI candidacy, since the CI is designed for those who get little or no benefit from hearing aids.

Hope you get your approval soon!
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Exactly - and any residual hearing that is "lost" is so little its not giving you any benefit anyway, so there's no real "loss" if you choose to be implanted.
 
I am confused about the audiologist's answer. "If there is no noted benefit from hearing aids, the test is still valid. WE just needed to try...and you tried." Maybe "we tried" means "you tried" like the audiologist say or maybe it means "you and the audiologist tried". Can you email your insurance company and ask about the need for HA hearing test for CI surgery before you audiology appointment? Just to be sure? If the insurance company is happy, no problem. But no insurance for surgery is a disaster I think and disaster to you, not the audiologist.
 
SkullChick said:
Yes I asked all questions to her I copied her exact response.
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Will you have to actually use the HA during some of the test? BTW when I was tested they told me to put the V on my HA where it was normally for me. Where I heard best. I tended to lower it because of the noise that came through. What they concidered 'ideal' and what I could tolerate were probably different. So don't worry to much about the coming tests. I hope you 'fail' with flying colors. :)
 
Kaitin said:
I am confused about the audiologist's answer. "If there is no noted benefit from hearing aids, the test is still valid. WE just needed to try...and you tried." Maybe "we tried" means "you tried" like the audiologist say or maybe it means "you and the audiologist tried". Can you email your insurance company and ask about the need for HA hearing test for CI surgery before you audiology appointment? Just to be sure? If the insurance company is happy, no problem. But no insurance for surgery is a disaster I think and disaster to you, not the audiologist.
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The insurance company will let the hospital know whether or not it has been approved with the test she just had done with the HA and the audiologist and surgeon recommendation.
 
contradica said:
The insurance company will let the hospital know whether or not it has been approved with the test she just had done with the HA and the audiologist and surgeon recommendation.
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But Skullchick, you didn't just have a test done with the HA, right? I just think you are better to ask before any problems with insurance. If Skullchick had the test with the HAs, no problem. But if she waits and thinks insurance is fine and then needs the test maybe she will have a problem with the schedule of surgery. With surgery cost maybe you want to make sure about insurance with a lot of time before surgery. But maybe I worry about nothing.
 
jag said:
Will you have to actually use the HA during some of the test? BTW when I was tested they told me to put the V on my HA where it was normally for me. Where I heard best. I tended to lower it because of the noise that came through. What they concidered 'ideal' and what I could tolerate were probably different. So don't worry to much about the coming tests. I hope you 'fail' with flying colors. :)
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V? What's V? Well audiologist went lowest it can go cuz I get so much problem and its too quiet to hear what I want to hear (speech sound garbled cuz some letter I can't hear it) and if go any higher I get really dizzy, unbalanced and pain in ear. So there's nothing we can do to help it. and I don't know about hearing test cuz she need talk to surgeon about it since ha is very unconmfortable and no matter what they said I still do the test next week.
 
Kaitin said:
But Skullchick, you didn't just have a test done with the HA, right? I just think you are better to ask before any problems with insurance. If Skullchick had the test with the HAs, no problem. But if she waits and thinks insurance is fine and then needs the test maybe she will have a problem with the schedule of surgery. With surgery cost maybe you want to make sure about insurance with a lot of time before surgery. But maybe I worry about nothing.
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My insurance is required by law to pay if surgeon and audiologist said its medically necessary and I receive little or no benefit from hearing aid and I AM doing test next week with or without hearing aid all she need to know if I get any benefit from hearing aid and I did hearing aid trial and it didn't work out at all and very intolerable I can't turn up any louder or be in room with more than 5 people or I'll be very very dizzy
 
Just for your information you do not always lose hearing in the ear that is implanted. You do almost all the time but not always. My daughter has an implant and she did not lose her hearing in the side that she was implanted. I asked the audiologist about it and she said that in rare cases you do not lose your hearing, which was my daughter. She also said that since it happens most of the time they just want to cover themselves.
 
skullchick,

My audiologist had me do the test with and without the aid. I am sure my loss is not nearly like yours and I am a candidate. Mainly due to the fact that my speech discrimination is so poor in both ears.

I am sure everything will work out for you.

dogirl
 
Same here. Even though I found the hearing aid very painful and causing tinnitus that seemed to bite me I was still made to put it on for the speech tests, which formed the basis for me getting eventually approved for my CI.

However, my audie didn't make me wear it at other times. I would have slapped her if she had!

For the second ear, because there was some benefit from the hearing aid, I had to trial 3 different hearing aids in real life to see if I could get better results before proceeding with the CI.
 
SkullChick said:
V? What's V? Well audiologist went lowest it can go cuz I get so much problem and its too quiet to hear what I want to hear (speech sound garbled cuz some letter I can't hear it) and if go any higher I get really dizzy, unbalanced and pain in ear. So there's nothing we can do to help it. and I don't know about hearing test cuz she need talk to surgeon about it since ha is very unconmfortable and no matter what they said I still do the test next week.
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V is volume control. Sorry. :) I still hope you fail the test with flying colors and get the CI if that is really what you wish to try.
 
Skullchick,

For me, I was still able to understand speech however, the progression of my hearing loss was going so fast that the decission was made by my audiologist and Dr that by the time I underwent surgery and waited the 4+ weeks for activation, my ability to hear would be such that I would qualify.

We went after my worse of the two ears. Somewhere around 110db loss if I remember right. The better of my two ears was pretty bad as well and was changing so often that I was having my aid reprogrammed at least every week. What helped my case also is that the insurance company helped pay for or at least were notified that I went through the two aids in 6-8 months because they kept running out of power.

I was also told that I had to try an aid in order to qualify for a CI. Less expensive and no surgery required. They also would only put out X dollars for an aid where as the CI, they covered all but my TV and Phone expense while I was at the hospital. Because I was suppose to be out patient but stayed over night recovering, the hospital never charged me for either. I may have had to stay overnight since both my wife and nurse ganged up on me and told me I couldn't leave because I was so mean coming out of surgery. I sure don't remember being mean. I do remember someone trying to feed me a cracker that I could not chew. O'well.

I wish you luck. My experience is that if the Audi and Dr. say that you don't need to keep wearing your HA because it causes pain or dizzyness that is their job. I also know that extremely loud HA's do cause pain and dizzyness due to the vibrations so I can relate some. Also, if this is their recommendation, they will help fight for you when it comes to the insurance companies. They deal with them every day and know what to say.

Steve
 
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