LOL! I’m having trouble walking in my own shoes these days! Much of the time I just go barefoot! And to @MDB: Under the Zip plan - The aids are sold by Zip themselves. They are supposedly authorized sellers of all the brands they represent. You will receive some level of discount. How much manipulation of the price is possible, is uncertain at this point. The thing that makes their model attractive is that the price also includes fitting and multiple adjustment visits to an Audi chosen by them, and it’s stated up front that they offer the 45 day manufacturers’ return policy with no restocking fees. After getting tested you arrange purchase of the aids of your choice and they are sent to the Audi. IMO, the Audi is a potential weak point. I assume that those of you in cities have multiple choices. In my small town area I was only offered one choice. These guys are located in Tennessee and I assume the legwork of getting Audi’s into the network is done via phone, and through online research. They are most certainly NOT visiting all these Audi’s in person. Audi’s must qualify to be part of their network, and I don’t know what criteria they have to satisfy. I made the point while talking with them that I would like to be able to see which Audi’s offer REM and which don’t, because there may be a greater likelihood that people who shop their program may be more likely to be informed before hand, than those who just walk in cold to some local Audi. I tried to be suggestive instead of critical, as they are just getting this business going, and according to Dr. Cliff Olsen there is only one provider in my state that follows best practices, as he outlines them, and she is 3 1/2 hours from me. If necessary, AFTER I have aids, if I feel this Audi is not satisfactory, I may well make the long drive to the best practices Audi for some adjustment (I also plan to do some self-programming later). Or if I don’t like this guy I will just pay for my test and walk away. This type of program is attractive to me because my local brick-and-mortar options are so lacking. I expect to see a lot of competition in this online model in the near future.
As far as the aids you decide on and the provider I wish you the best of luck. I live in Arkansas now, out of town and close to Hot Springs, I use the VA as my hearing loss is military service related, and I am so very luck that the VA takes care of my hearing aid needs, and even most of my health needs. Hearing aids are just that an aid. With hearing loss there isn’t anything that is perfect sounding anymore, I don’t care what the hearing aid marketing says, they just sugar coat it to death, and to the ones of us that know about hearing loss most of it is pure lies.
I am a great Audi at the clinic in Hot Springs that is so extremely patient with all of the Veterans that use the clinic, and there is a whole lot of us, seeing this area is a retirement area, and retired, and veterans seem to love the area. Before this virus started I did volunteer work at the clinic, and hope to again once we get where we don’t have to wear the face mask.
My first pair of aids came from and online order, that the group sent me to one of the Audis in my area, back then it was the Dallas Texas area. It was the worst mistake of my life, the Audi wasn’t that good. The aids should have been good for my then mild to moderate hearing loss, but the impressions were don’t poorly, and the aids never fit correctly and so the aids could never be adjusted to my needs. I was in the VA at the time but had been turned down for aids twice, but I sought out a state representative, who got me in with one of the state senators to Washington, who managed to put pressure on the Navy to find my so called missing medical records. Even though I had copies of my Navy records the VA refused to accept them. This senator also found a person in the Pentagon that was then a Navy Admiral that was one of my officers when I was part of a special operations group in DC. Well, the short story, was all of a sudden the VA could work fast enough to get me aids, to get my disability going and I have been taken care of every since. I was lucky and I still am to have the VA to take care of my progress hearing loss.
You Sir, are very lucky. Wish I had your influence! I’m a Viet Nam War vet. I registered with the VA for a vaccination and never heard back. Eventually got one through the DOH just cause I’m “old.” Therefore I haven’t considered the VA for HA’s. I could claim my loss was service related, caused by the jets roaring by me on both sides of my GCA radar trailer all day (I was an Air Traffic Controller), but somehow I think that would be a hard sell 68 years later! I’m well along in not expecting perfection out of any of these devices. That’s why I’ve been considering the VIRTO Marvels. Even though they don’t offer quite the same capabilities the P90’s do (and probably not the reliability), it would be nice to be able to cram them into my ears and forget about them. I just am not very trusting that they can get the molds perfect. Key to doing this through ZIP though will be determined by how impressed I am with their audi selection.
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.
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!
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 :((
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 
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.
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!]
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.
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.