4 ms·

Because a hearing aid is a "medical product" therefore it gets the medical pricing.

• ekianjo 5y ago
  You have to thank the FDA and related mafia for that
  • mwachs 5y ago
    Not for long. Hearing devices will no longer be under the FDA’s purview.
  • zwirbl 5y ago
    a market for hearing aids and implants not at all regulated by FDA/MDR, what could possibly go wrong? /s Easing regulations for non-implant devices could really shake up the market in a good way, implantables OTOH should always be regulated as medical devices. But certifications with TÜV or similar are really getting out of hand with the new medical device regulation. The amount of paperwork for even pretty simple devices like a remote control is extraordinary. Source: I work for $company in that specific sector
    • ekianjo 5y ago
      > what could possibly go wrong? /s I wish we had FDA approved computers so that we would have stayed in the glorious 8 bits era for another century.
• jonathanlb 5y ago
  A hearing aid is a medical product. An off-the-shelf headphone reproduces sound that has already been engineered for consumption. Real-world sound on the other hand is unstructured and chaotic, so you'll need software to prioritize speech sounds while de-prioritizing background noise. That's going to require a bit more power to solve than a pair of headphones. On top of that, you'll need to understand which frequencies need boosting based on the patient's audiogram (basically a hearing loss profile). Can hearing aids be cheaper? Probably. Should they be covered by insurance? Absolutely. Should you research a bit more before spouting off some sort of feelgood soundbite? Yes, as well.
  • taneq 5y ago
    > An off-the-shelf headphone reproduces sound that has already been engineered for consumption. Real-world sound on the other hand is unstructured and chaotic Can’t you make phone calls with those headphones?