Heidi here - YES! Yes they are! My next pair will be 6.8K plus tax.
I need to buy new hearing aids because the ones I have now have the warranty expired as of Feb/23 and so I need to get new ones. For those of you who don't know, hearing aids are always falling apart or breaking from wear.
I have skeleton c-shells, which means I have a plastic mold bit that connects to the over-the-ear part. That part can get separated from the wires, or snap in half from wear, and I am in and out of the audiologist's office every 1-2 months for something like that.
I could buy less good hearing aids for 5K but the 6.8K ones have a bit of intelligent sound design. Hearing aids pick up all sounds equally and amplify all sounds equally without that. So if I am talking on the phone and boiling water in the kitchen and there is no one in the house, I won't be able to hear my friend because the kettle is too loud. So I want to get the intelligent sound feature because it will identify human sounds and amplify them louder than the other random sounds around you.
My current aids have the "good" intelligent sound design, but the 6.8K ones have the "excellent" intelligent sound design. It won't get rid of all the other hassles of wearing aids - the chaffing, the ear pain, the intense ear wax (gross, I know) - but it will make it easier to talk with people, and I like that.
Anyways, yes. Hearing aids are expensive, and I'm working on buying my next pair. No, they are not covered by medical, it's considered an extra expense. But you can write it off in your taxes.
Hope that helped any curious folks out there. What are your questions about hearing aids? I will put them in the questions for the future.
Sending love,
Heidi
// Originally posted on Instagram on February 11th, 2023.