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Stand up for private practice,

The heart and soul of hearing healthcare.

Industry changing news.  Act.

We must unite in the hearing healthcare industry.  The hearing impaired must be protected.

On October 3rd, 2011, insurance giant United Health Group Inc. announced that they will be offering on-line hearing tests and four different discount hearing devices for purchase on their website.  These products will be significantly lower in quality, cost and durability than the current options that hearing practices currently provide.  

In our field, we treat those we help as patients, not just consumers.  (BOLD)

As a medical professional, you know that any on-line evaluation replacing face-to-face diagnosis will ultimately be unsafe for their patient.  The time has come for us to act.

Look for more information soon regarding the upcoming ADA show, where BIHAS will host a meeting to help combat the proliferation of this unsafe practice and help support the patient’s best interests.

Protect Your Patients - Voice Your Concerns to AAA on Conflict of Interest

BIHAS is asking you to contact American Academy of Audiology and express your concerns on a vitally important conflict of interest matter.

An overwhelming amount of concern from audiologists who are members of BIHAS has been expressed about a recent flurry of activity on the audiology forum, SoundOFF, regarding questions that the chair of AAA Government Relations Committee has taken a position with UnitedHealthcare (UHC). Since UHC has emerged as a pivotal and potentially prominent force in providing hearing aids and testing over the internet, many concerned AAA members wonder if an audiologist in the employment of UHC should maintain a leadership position on this particular committee. The question of conflict of interest has been raised on the forum.  

This recent activity strongly indicates we need to communicate with the leadership of AAA, the largest representative body in the hearing healthcare industry, and let them know this development is completely unacceptable. Below is a list of AAA board members' email addresses. BIHAS members who are part of AAA should write to the organization's leadership, and let their voices be heard. In addition, we encourage you to visit AAA's website and voice your concerns with other AAA members on their message board, SoundOFF.  SoundOFF's forum provides a meaningful venue for continuing this dialogue and for discussing similar issues.

Join BIHAS today to add your name to our ranks, which now have exceeded 2,600.  If you are aware of any unethical internet sales activity or other conflicts of interest affecting patient safety, please contact us immediately.  

AAA Contacts For Your Follow-Up  

tcwalden@verizon.net; dlcarlso@utmb.edu; pkricos@ufl.edu; drkimbar@gmail.com;rcunningha m@atsu.edu; brian.fligor@childrens.harvard.edu;bchampion1@aol.com; zapala.david@mayo.edu; tom@facthear.net; rall@email.chop.edu; auderin@zoominternet.net; devin.mccaslin@vanderbilt.edu; kmorgenstein@gmail.com; ccarey@audiology.org; esullivan@audiology.org; abenham@audiology.org; msinden@audiology.org; lyonkers@audiology.org; dabel@audiology.org; skelley@audiology.org; molek@audiology.org; kculver@audiology.org; tbrazell@audiology.org

Act Now! Your Help is Needed!

We've set up a simple way for you to help defend patients' rights and stop online hearing aid sales.

We need to protect patients' rights. Here’s an easy way to ask your state legislators to help ban internet hearing aid sales.

Click Here to obtain sample letters for you to send to your specific state's Department of Health, as well as your representatives in Washington, and get our message out there. All you or your staff need to do is customize these letters as you see fit, print them - on your stationary if possible - sign them and mail them.

It's that fast and easy.

Who benefits from the internet sale of hearing aids?

We're a group of professionals dedicated to giving the best hearing healthcare possible to our patients. And we're concerned about the widespread sale of hearing aids on the Internet. So who benefits from this practice?

• Not the professional: internet sales drive up their cost – as much as tripling cost to practices.
• Not even the vendor/manufacturer: The demand for hearing aids is relatively flat: rather than driving up numbers, the internet sale of hearing aids merely migrates small business revenue to online vendors and corporations that own them.
• No one: It adds more people to the process, more steps, and ultimately more cost.

Add your voice – sign our completely confidential list. When we periodically report the total number of registrants to manufacturers, we’ll let manufacturers know how many industry professionals oppose their support of internet sales. Only aggregate information will be reported; your personal information is completely confidential.

"I feel the human touch needs to be kept involved. I realize the Internet is taking over every aspect of our lives, but when it comes to that human touch of compassion and caring for our patients, the Internet can't and won't be able to replace that, and I think the powers that are trying to should be ashamed of themselves." – A Hearing Healthcare Professional

5/7/12
supporter count: 

2699