Grey Bruce residents could soon feel the effects of possible regulatory changes in the hearing aid industry.
Hearing Instrument Specialist and owner of Great Lakes Hearing Jill Curtis says the potential regulatory changes from the province requires those looking for government financial support purchasing a hearing aid to visit an audiologist. This could be done previously through a hearing instrument specialist.
“When we lose our authorization status, we can not sign off on hearing aids for clients. Hearing aids require a prescription or the government funding form to be signed by a family physician, or an audiologist. When we lose our authorization status, we can no longer do that,” says Curtis.
She says small independent businesses like her’s, who do not have an audiologist, would need to out source or a client would need to go straight to an audiologist.
“Living in Wiarton, it’s difficult because first of all, these people don’t travel or they don’t like to travel too much so that is why I opened here to help the community,” says Curtis.
Curtis says there are quite a few audiologists in Grey Bruce, but if the regulation ends up getting passed, the concern is for people who will need to travel across the region to meet with an audiologist, which will in turn create a backlog.
“At the beginning it may run a little smoothly until everybody gets backed up and then you are just going to be waiting to be seen. Some people, sure they can get by without their hearing aids, some people can’t, they depend on that,” says Curtis.
She says this regulatory change came into effect for a short time, but after complaints from the Association of Hearing Instrument Practitioners of Ontario (AHIP), the province backtracked the decision. It is currently being discussed.
“So now we are just sitting on hold waiting for the government to decide what they are going to do with our status,” says Curtis. “There has been meetings with the Ministry of Health and with our association AHIP, with Caslpo which is the Audiology College, and then with manufacturers. They are all trying to get together to come to some form of an agreement that is going to make this work.”
She says this regulatory change came about with the aim of removing the need for a family doctor to sign off on getting a hearing aid.
“It’s one of those forms that they spend time looking over and they don’t get paid for it, so they have to do it on their own time. They (the province) are trying to pull that away from them and have an audiologist sign instead because an audiologist can sign a hearing aid prescription,” says Curtis.
She does not know of any timeline for when the government will return on a decision for the possible regulatory change.
