Why are audiology services often “bundled” with hearing aid sales? According to an article by Virginia Ramachandran in Hearing Review (Ramachandran V, Stach BA, and Schuette A. Factors Influencing Patient Utilization of Audiologic Treatment Following Hearing Aid Purchase.Hearing Review. 2012;19(02):18-29.) it’s as a form of insurance around their time.

“The bundling of audiologic professional services serves as a form of ‘insurance’ for [audiologic treatments/aural rehabilitation] service. This is because, when a hearing device is purchased, neither the patient nor audiologist knows just how much audiologic intervention will be required or utilized by a given patient.”

However, the data shows that most people don’t want many visits. In a retrospective analysis, medical record numbers were collected from patients who obtained hearing aids in the year 2009 at the Henry Ford Fairlane Medical Center (HFHS). The health care billing system was then used to determine the number of hearing aid “follow-up” encounters for each of the 503 patients. The number of the encounters was tallied for exactly 1 year following the date of the hearing aid acquisition.The total number of post-dispensing encounters was 1,567 for an average of 3.12 encounters per patient in the year following the hearing aid acquisition. Hearing Review. 2012;19(02):18-29.)

It appears that most people will make less than 4 visits, and many will make 2 or fewer follow-up visits.

A small proportion of people make a lot of visits, and with the bundled pricing method, the people who make very few visits are heavily subsidising those who make a lot of visits.