Refurbished hearing aids being sold as new? Be wary!

Hearing Aids
#21

He may have, but they would re-imburse him once they were returned if it was within the manufacturer trial period. He would be out the cost of the associated services. Where I am, the government also funds some of the cost of hearing aids but reimbursement for that is months and months down the road, so we essentially just loan the hearing aid user $1000 for a few months until the government pays us back. :wink:

Hearing aid prices largely cover R&D, not materials in the device. I mean, it’s the size of a quarter.

#22

What’s VA? So assuming a bit of a markup and some admin costs, the manufacturer might be out of pocket a few hundred dollars per returned trial? I wonder how much that ends up adding to the purchase prices.

#23

VA = Veterans Administration (US)

It is the largest provider of hearing aids in the US – about 20% of total.

#24

I wonder why they “weren’t having it”. They can set it up in front of you. I think transparency is very important when it comes to selling hearing aids. In my opinion, a consumer should not be paying full price for hearing aids that were worn by someone else during a trial period. THEY ARE USED! Worn in someone else’s ear where dirt and sweat accumulate, where inside components may have been jarred or damaged. Doesn’t matter if hearing aid dispenser cleans them before giving them to someone else. Should I pay thousands of dollars for hearing aids that are used? They are already overpriced as it is. The only way consumers are going to know for sure if they are getting new aids is if they ask to have them unboxed in front of them. End of story.

#25

Comparing hearing aids to new cars? Not the same. Test driven cars are not taken home by potential buyers to be driven for hours at a time. Hearing aids are “test driven” by being taken home by buyers for 30 days or more, being worn daily for ten or more hours at a time, subject to dirt, sweat, and heavy handling. You call that new?

#26

You obviously had some positive experiences with audiologists and hearing aid dispensers and that’s great. But it has been my experience that there can be very little compassion or empathy for hearing impaired people in the hearing aid business. Like all practitioners in healthcare they must make a living. I’m just saying as a medical consumer we need to be our own advocates, because private practice audiologists primary concern is to make money and cut costs and sometimes it can be at the expense of the consumer. That is the problem with healthcare being a “business”. The patient is a consumer and must advocate for themselves.

#27

This is very true. I’m surprised you were allowed to see the invoice. You bring up an important point about the possibility of manufacturers repackaging used aids as new. If this is going on, for shame. This is fraud, and audiologists and consumers don’t know and can’t prove it’s going on. I wonder if there are any internal or external quality control policies that prevent this form happening at the manufacturers? Based on the number of online complaints I read about problems with new hearing aids, I wonder. It would be nice to get a response from someone who works for a hearing aid manufacturer. What do manufacturers do with returned used hearing aids?

#28

If you read the thread carefully you will see that it was not me who made that comparison - it was Halfear. I was responding to his comparison.

#29

There is no evidence that what has been proposed is happening. The OP just made an assumption and ran with it.

#30

@Psocoptera: You’re replying to the same OP from 2 weeks ago.

#31

There is still no evidence. Just an unfounded assumption.

#32

No hearing aids ‘cost’ $10,000.

Transfer prices that manufacturers must clear are about $300. Cost to them must be less than that (or they wouldn’t make a profit).

#33

I had always assumed the manufacturing cost was way less than $300, but I didn’t realise manufacturers were taking such a tiny proportion of the final price.

I most of the final price is to cover the audiologist’s costs, they should theoretically be able to sell me an identical spare set, identically programmed for, say, $400, shouldn’t they? Plenty of optometrists are doing this with glasses.

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#34

That’s a transfer price; not a wholesale price. That’s the amount that includes all of the manufacturing costs, factory R+D and the supply chain plus marketing support to the Audiologist etc.

Wholesale prices to the Audiologist will be (in the U.K.) for the top end, circa £1k plus 20% tax per aid. These equate to about £3.2-£3.6k for a pair of top end aids.

This shows you that the manufacturers are taking at least as much profit as the Audiologist even with an independent set-up. Where they run the high street set-up, they take 100%.