I was told at my mustering out physical that had some hearing loss, that was was early 1977. My loss was due to flying in the cargo bay of C141 jets, all over the globe. I didn’t think too much about that until my hearing got to the point that I couldn’t do my job as well as I should. But you are right it s a pain to get squared away with the VA. But you are a Vietnam veteran so they have to provide the services to you, stay after them. Once you get in the door they have to give you a complete physical encluding hearing and eyes. It is worth it, and if there isn’t a clinic or hospital within 40 miles or an hour drive you can opt to have them send you to a private clinic.
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You will definitely qualify for VA provided HA’s.
You need to make an appt. with the Audiology dept. at your VA location.
Forget Zip, or any other for profit provider.
Seriously, get the best from the VA, you earned it!
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Well now you guys have done it. After several phone calls to multiple VA facilities (Federal govt. - oh yeah, I remember them now!) I was finally able to find out what I have to do to see if I qualify for hearing care. Won’t bore you with the details - but it doesn’t sound like fun. And there’s nothing quick about it. Since I’ve never made a service-related complaint, I’m not very hopeful - and hey…at 20 yrs. old, and back in the mid sixties - who’d a thunk that a gaggle of jet traffic going by100 yards away outside your door all day long would affect your hearing when you got old? So now I have a dilemma. Monday morning I have the zip hearing Audi eval. Too late to cancel that now. And I don’t really want to cancel that, in case the VA turns me down - then I’ll be waiting another month to get on the list again. And I don’t want to miss the chance to save a grand on a pair of aids should the VA thing go South. (Sounds like a second-rate plot for a Hallmark channel TV movie) I have a call coming in from a friend today. A former artillery officer who was also in the war. (If you stood next to an artillery piece all day I doubt you would have much trouble claiming service-related loss!) He’s going to fill me in on his VA experience. Would be nice to get the HA’s for free. Then I’d have an extra few thousand to give to my eye care people :((
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I have been wearing Phonak RIC (similar to BTE) hearing aids for four years. I have also been wearing glasses for 60 years. Just like anything else, it takes about three weeks to get used to something so that it seems “normal” and has always been that way. Getting used to the physical presence of the hearing aids behind the ear was the same, I don’t even know that they are there. The only nuisance problems that I have experienced is with masks. If I am not careful removing it, the mask ear loop gets tangled with the hearing aid and can pull the HA out and off of the ear sending it flying.
To make the mask problem easier to live with, I put on my hearing aids first and then the glasses. This way, the HA wire is trapped between my head and the glasses frame. In my case the wire is long enough that I can move the HA to the outside of the glasses looping the wire over the glasses frame. This way if the mask loop inadvertently yanks on the hearing aid, the glasses actually prevent the HA from being thrown somewhere. This has been working for me so far.
Speaking of mask annoyances – the fogging of glasses while wearing masks really irritates me – but this is the subject for another forum/thread.
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LOL! Welcome to the forum. The niggling little details you are describing are exactly the things I appreciate hearing about. Those little things can be important when coming to this stuff as a noob, and having to try to imagine what having prosthetic devices attached to your person all day long will be like before you have to commit to even ordering them. I’m trying not to make mask-wearing a big part of this equation - in hopes this will soon fade away (for awhile at least). I’m thinking about things like…what will it be like if I go into the studio, trying to wear my aids all day, as recommended, and have to put on a face shield, a pair of ear muffs, AND a dust mask, to work on a large power tool? And I get it about the fogging glasses issue. Through much of the pandemic I wore an industrial shop mask that incorporated an N95 insert held in a plastic frame that was held on by a cup-like retainer that went over the crown of my head and an elastic strap that went around the back of my neck. I looked like some Star Wars character wandering through the supermarket! This thing is highly efficient and pretty much only allowed airflow in and out through the mask itself. Even a fast walk left me out-of-breath. Problem was, nobody could hear what I was saying. When production of the mask styles you commonly see most people wearing ramped up, and Chinese KN95 shells became more available, I paired the two and began looking like everyone else. Right away I discovered that there was a huge in-and-out airflow occurring around the the bridge of my nose (so much for protection!). And there was no way I could stop it. Almost immediately my glasses fogged up and I basically became blind. Now I am only partially blind, as I have been forced to take my glasses off anytime I’m wearing this mask. Oh, the indignities! Thankfully, I don’t give a hoot about people seeing any hearing aids I might be wearing.
You are definitely making this much more difficult for yourself than is necessary.
just follow this guide.
Or, google how to qualify for hearing aids from va for tons of info.
It is only as difficult as you make it, I was in the Navy and everything was hurry up and wait, that is everything to do with the government when it come with the government doing anything for you and me. But the government wants what we have to get to it yesterday.
I also, have learned this, different parts of the country the VA works at different speed, there was a time I thought it was due to population but that doesn’t always prove to be that way. It seems to depend on the mentality of the people in the area. While I was in Dallas everything took for ever to happen. I moved to Austin Texas and everything happened some what faster. But have now moved to Hot Springs Arkansas and while life seems to move slower here I have had so much faster service here. Where in Texas it could take 6 weeks to get new aids, here it has been 3 weeks or less. In Texas it took at least a month to get aids back from being repaired, here in Hot Springs it takes 10 days or less. Mailed out medication here takes about a week, in Texas it was 2 weeks. Getting appointments in Texas it was a month to a month and a half. Here about 2 weeks to a month. The only real difference was in Austin there was a wake in clinic for minor repairs and return for repairs. The clinic here doesn’t really have a walking clinic but we are still told to come in if we need hearing aids repaired, we just need to call a head. And here I am able to email my doctors, that wasn’t available to me on Texas mostly due to being in one of the departments with a number of doctors or nurse practitioners. Here I am assigned to my doctors or nurse practitioner.
I learned to know the system and to work that system for my own good.
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Thanks for the info and the links guys. I have never applied for benefits other than educational back in the early 70’s while going school
I left the service in 1977 and I didn’t apply for my benefits other than education until 2004, when I was out of work, and could not afford the care I needed for my blood pressure issues. I was brought in quickly for the exams and medication I needed, I was also given hearing and eye exams. It took over 2 years to finally get a proved for my hearing aids, and I didn’t get approved for glasses until sometime around 2012. My hearing was found to be service related, but it wasn’t until 2015 that I finally got my disability, and even then they would not give me the back pay that I should have gotten. I have two advocates here in Arkansas and 1 in Texas that are still fighting for my disability, my doctors here claim I should be getting about 50% disability, from the time I left the service but I am only getting 20%. To be honest I am just happy to get the services and hearing aids that I do. The advocates here are telling me that I deserve the pay and the state is doing a push for it now. My problem is at my age there isn’t a lot of people around that I worked with while in the service. I am sure you are well aware of that too.
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I wear Phonak P90 with glasses and have no issue. The main issue is with face mask elastic straps getting tangled with the aids when I take the mask off.
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I have no problem wearing both glasses and my Phonak P90-Rs. Glasses typically fit close to the skin, so they just sit inside where the aids sit (see photo). Regarding the use of a mask … I find that I can avoid the “tangle” when removing the mask by running my index finger up a sideburn and then over the ear . The elastic then slides around the aid and doesn’t pull it off. 
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Thanks to you other vets who gave me a push to check out the VA. I started the process this weekend. looks like it could be a long haul. We’ll see what happens. Would I like to get P90’s for free? You bet. Well, they did get four years of my life, so “free” is a relative term.
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To all the vets here, thank you for your service. While I’m happy to hear the range of services you can get at the VA is wide, it saddens me you have to go through so much grief to get the benefits you deserve. Needing an advocate to intervene shouldn’t be necessary. The VA itself should be the one to make sure you know of your benefits and smooth the process out for you. It’s good to hear the staff is so helpful once you’re approved and “in the system” but you shouldn’t be made to fight for it.
It’s good to know once you cut through the bureaucracy they give you top end HAs and support. And I agree it’s not truly free, you earned it.
@castaway I hope you can get the VA to cover you. You served, you had your hearing damaged, and they should work to make you whole. I hope it’s not a long struggle so you don’t have to wait years for what you deserve today.
As we all had it drummed into us from the first day we were mustered into boot camp: “united , we stand…”
Any bureaucracy is an overwhelming adversary if, in our mind, we try to engage the system as one man or one woman. But we are not one, but a band of brothers*, united by our service, and - in this Forum - by our loss of hearing.**
I may be wrong, and this thought may ring hollow to those that are jaded, however, I believe the help and succour we freely offer one another here can help smooth the path and perhaps even shorten the journey.
My $0.02/YMMV
*[NOTA BENE: No sexism is intended in the use of this expression.]
**[So YES, there IS a Forum for that!]
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The issues are the politicians, they write so much BS to give so many loopholes that it is mine numbing. I spend almost 4 years in Washington DC in the service and support of 2 presidents and I saw the BS and corruption first hand.
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I had to give up on the Feds today. Examples: You can apply for benefits using online forms at VA.gov, and upload many personal documents and records and be told you now have officially registered, and then have some phone agent tell you that those online forms are no longer valid or in use (AFTER you have uploaded your personal documents to God-knows-where). You can declare that the web site says you are validly registered and you now have an account - and a guy on the phone says “no you aren’t - those forms should have been taken down long ago.” You can call numbers and go through a 2-minute menu system only to be told that the phone system is out of order - “please call again later.” You can call one number that refers you to another number that refers you to another number that sends you to a location that you drive to, only to be told they don’t do that there - you have to go to this OTHER location in another city that does that - but the ID card you needs requires a photo, and the only place you can get that is by driving to another city - which has the camera required to take the required photo, but they may not be taking photos now because of the pandemic, so you need to drive an hour to that location to see if they are taking photos now…and on…and on…ad infinitum. And then you call another number only to find out that somewhere back in the eighties or nineties they changed the whole system so that if you make over X-amount of income (an amount that is middle-class at best) you don’t qualify for benefits anyway. I could go on - and no - this is not the script for a bad Mel Brooks satire, but I think I’ve made my point. You get to a place where you would gladly pay five grand for HA’s if only you could get off this crazy merry-go-round to ennui. I’ll try to figure out later why my friend the artillery officer, who is a multi-millionaire, got his free HA’s.
You just played into their hand. You have to be stubborn and keep after them. It has paid off for me.In the last 16 years I have gotten 5 sets of aids, and all of my needed supplies, and extras that I could ever need. I also get 20% disability which is enough to cover my gas money and beer money. I also get my prescription medications and needed supplements for nothing with my VA benefit and my Medicare supplement.
@castaway
I’m just curious as to where you are located.
I’ll admit, and 2nd the opinion of Chuck, that you do have to be stubborn, and persistent, but it sounds like you are in VA Hell!
Here in Southern CA, I went to the VA Hospital in Long Beach, back in 2013, and although jumping thru some hoops is necessary, I had my 1st pair of aids in 2 months.
The most difficult part of the process was getting a Premium VA on-line account, but it was not required for the Hearing Aids.
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I am in New Mexico. Whatever system or process you could name, is bound to be worse here than anywhere else. ie. Need a critical surgical procedure? If at all possible, you fly over to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona and have it done there. The bureaucracy? Well, I can’t speak to it on this forum. Point is…how far will you go to avoid having to spend five grand? At 75 I am still a full-time working professional artist. If the art world ever resumes, whatever time remains to me would be better spent making a painting that would pay for my aids rather than spending my life on endless phone calls and driving all over the state chasing wild gooses. I do find it amusing though that every place I go and on every phone call, somebody thanks me for my service. 
BTW…I’ve decided to pull the plug on the Paradise P90’s
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A final comment after 5 days with my new P90’s: Was it pointless to worry over this issue? No. Having these objects riding over top of my Pinna is definitely something I am aware of. I find myself fidgeting with them a lot - making sure the receiver is still well-positioned in my canal - making sure the shells are where they are supposed to be, and not dangling over top of my ear. Are they entwined with my long hair? Yes, the same hair that constantly makes rustling sounds in my ear as it bounces and swishes around against the mics. And sometimes I just have to reach up and touch them just to be sure they are still there. And then there is the mask-wearing. OH! the mask wearing! Everyone knows about that. I’m just trying to think of it as a temporary situation - not a permanent “feature.” Are they as undetectable and hassle-free as my old Eargos? Absolutely not. There is a freedom to in-the-canal devices that you just can’t beat.
Do I regret choosing this form? Well, I’m pretty impressed with the sound quality and the implementation of the AutoSense feature. Most of the time I’m not even aware of, or thinking about the fact I am impaired. Connectivity is nice (when it works). And I haven’t yet really even explored all the possibilities and adjustments that these little power-houses promise - especially when I get enough knowledge and experience to begin my own adjustments in Target.So no…I have no regrets. It’s really a case of nothing being perfect. There’s always a trade-off somewhere - and I think the trade-off here is having a little physical hassle while getting some really stunning improvements in my hearing in trade.
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