Hearing News Watch

As observed here last week, recent meetings between leaders of several professional hearing healthcare organizations and executives of United Healthcare (UHC) and its subsidiary hi HealthInnovations (UHC/HI) seem to have done little to resolve the issues that divide them. The key area of disagreement is the new hearing aid benefit being offered to consumers covered by UHC’s Medicare Advantage insurance

LARGO, FL—More than 275 million people around the world have disabling hearing loss (>40 dB HL) and another 365 million-plus have milder losses, according to the most recent estimate by the World Health Organization. Of these, an estimated 75% live in developing countries, where hearing healthcare providers and services are so scarce that only a tiny fraction of the children

NEW ORLEANS—Three of the nation’s largest companies were honored on February 23 for their exemplary record of providing a hearing-healthy environment for their employees. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) announced the recipients of its 2012 Safe-in-Sound Excellence in Hearing Loss Prevention Awards™ during the annual conference of the National Hearing Conservation Association in New Orleans. The

SMØRUM, DENMARK–The Oticon Foundation, together with the parent company of the Danish toy maker Lego, has invested 675 million Euros, about $900 million, in the construction of a giant new wind farm off the German coast in the North Sea. Within a few years, the foundation expects its stake in the wind farm to produce over five times as much

DETROIT—Do you use your right ear to listen to your cell phone? If so, you’re probably right-handed but left-brained. So says a new study conducted by researchers at the Henry Ford Hospital. According to a news report issued this week by the Henry Ford Health System, scientists found a strong correlation between people’s brain dominance and the ear they use

LIVONIA, MI–Although United Healthcare (UHC) and leaders of several professional associations in hearing care sat down last month to talk with one another (see our February 7 post), there’s little sign that the differences between them can be reconciled. On the one hand, UHC’s subsidiary, hi HealthInnovations, seems fully committed to selling hearing aids directly to consumers. On the other

By David H. Kirkwood PITTSBURGH–The Academy of Doctors of Audiology and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) have reached an agreement on one of the issues raised by ADA in a suit filed August 2, 2011 against ASHA in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania. However, other issues remain unresolved and the legal battle continues. In its suit,

TAIPEI, TAIWAN—Researchers have found that found that men in a study group with sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL) were nearly 50% more likely also to have obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) than men in the group who had not suffered sudden hearing loss. The results of the large-scale retrospective study were published last month in the Archives of Otolaryngology–Head & Neck

BALTIMORE—Only one out of seven Americans age 50 and over with hearing loss wears hearing aids. So reports a paper published online February 13 in Archives of Internal Medicine  by Wade Chien, MD, and Frank Lin, MD, PhD, both from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. That one-in-seven (14%) figure indicates that hearing aids are even more underutilized

BOSTON—The Voice, America’s Got Talent, and, most famously of all, American Idol, have proven that when it comes to garnering a blockbuster television audience, there’s nothing like an old-fashioned talent show with a new twist, say, an obnoxious host, thrown in. If that concept rocks the Nielsen ratings, it should do the same at AudiologyNOW! 2012. That’s the thinking behind