Insurance
INSURANCE COVERAGE FOR EFFECTS OF HEARING LOSS
Hearing loss is a personal inconvenience, but it is frequently much more than that. Losses can dramatically affect our employment and earning capacity. The devices and treatments that we need to cope with our loss can be expensive -- sometimes prohibitively so.
The good news is that insurance in some form often addresses these issues. But because hearing loss is usually not anyone's fault, and because so many of us are in denial about the existence and extent of our loss, we often don't even consider investigating whether we might be eligible for certain beneffits. And because of the invisible nature of hearing loss, we may not get the same level of cooperation in seeking benefits that someone with a highly visible condition might receive.
This site contains general information about certain types of insurance. Health insurance -- that is, payment or reimbursement for medical costs, is provided by both private insurance carriers and by public plans -- Medicare and Medicaid. Disability insurance to compensate us for the loss of our earning capacity is also provided by both public and private carriers. Public insurance comes in the form of Washington State workers' compensation insurance, generally known as L&I (for Labor and Industries) coverage, and Social Security disability insurance. Private insurance is provided by a bewildering array of different policies.
