More than 30 million Americans experience significant hearing loss, but only a third of them gets hearing aids.
There are a lot of reasons why someone who needs a hearing aid won't get one: Some think their hearing loss is not that bad, others are too embarrassed to use them, and many people say they are just not worth the price.
A hearing aid costs an average of $1,500 per year for a basic model, and unlike most technology, their price has not dropped over time.
What is worse, most insurance companies do not pay for the devices. Even Medicare does not cover hearing aids — and the Affordable Care Act will not change that.
Some businesses see the hearing aid market as an opportunity. Costco has opened hearing aid centers in discount warehouses all over the country. Other companies have started selling their own brands of the devices directly online.
Ross Porter, the founder of online retailer Embrace Hearing, says that hearing aids are only expensive because audiologists and distributors charge steep markups on them.
But Virginia Ramachandran, an audiologist with the Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, says it is unwise to buy a hearing aid for the first time online. She says the device might be fine, but you will not know how to use it correctly.
"If someone gave you a laptop computer, and you have never used one before, you would not know how to turn it on, you would not know what programs or how to use them," she says.
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