Hearing Aids on Amazon in 2023

Now, I love Amazon as much as anyone, but if you go there to buy hearing aids, you're probably gonna get ripped off. Hi guys. Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Phoenix, Arizona. And in this video, I'm talking about buying hearing aids on Amazon in 2023. Coming up !

Now, it's been a few years since my last video talking about the best hearing aids that you could purchase on Amazon. However, over that time, a lot has changed in the world of hearing aids as well as for the world's largest online retailer. Now, in 2022, we finally saw the release of the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act final guidelines, making over-the-counter hearing aids an official category. We also saw a huge spike in the availability of cheap generic amplifiers being illegally advertised as hearing aids and over-the-counter hearing aids, as well as a massive increase in the amount of counterfeit products available on Amazon. Nowadays, a simple Amazon search for OTC hearing aids currently yields 187 search results while a search for hearing aids will get you over 1000 search results. While these results might seem reasonable, the vast majority of devices in these search results are not hearing aids at all.

In a recent article published by Consumer Affairs, they reported that a multitude of hearing products for sale on Amazon were using deceptive sales tactics, essentially calling their products hearing aids or OTC hearing aids without actually meeting the FDA's criteria to do so. In addition to this, despite Amazon's best attempts, they also have a huge problem with counterfeit products, meaning that you could think that you are buying illegitimate hearing aid only to get a cheap knockoff. Instead, in my opinion, this has created a situation where you can no longer trust any hearing aid product available on Amazon, no matter how legitimate it may seem. The good news is you have some other options if you don't wanna purchase hearing aids from Amazon. But before I share what those other options are, if you could do me a huge favor and click the like button, it really helps out my channel because it can see these videos in front of a bigger audience. And while you're at it, if you have not yet hit that subscribe button with Notification Bell, go ahead and do that as well, because that ensures that you never miss one of my newly released videos and I release multiple new videos every single week. That being said, I really appreciate it. And now let's take a look at what you can do when you wanna buy hearing aids online. All right, so first of all, if you're trying to purchase prescription hearing aids online, let me go ahead and just stop you right there.

The only way that you should be purchasing prescription hearing aids is from a local hearing care professional after you've received a comprehensive hearing evaluation from them. If a company is willing to sell you prescription hearing aids online, then there is a high probability that those hearing aids are either used, stolen, or unauthorized for online sale, which will void the warranty. Just the other day, I saw a patient here in Arizona who had purchased a $5,000 pair of Signia 7AX hearing aids online from a clinic in California, only to find out that those hearing aids were assigned to a US veteran, which means that we could not reassign those devices to her. Basically, if anything ever goes wrong with those hearing aids, she's screwed because we can't send them back into the manufacturer to get them repaired. And on top of that, she unfortunately used all of her hearing aid benefits for the next five years through her insurance company.

Now, this is extremely unfortunate for her, but hopefully you can learn from her mistakes. Not to mention, it is impossible to properly fit and program a set of prescription hearing aids that have been purchased online because you need to have real ear measurement and real ear measurement can only be performed inside of a hearing aid clinic. Now, if you do not know what real ear measurement is, then I highly recommend you check out my video that I will link in the description because it is the only way to ensure that your hearing aids have been programmed correctly to your hearing loss prescription. However, if you are looking to purchase over-the-counter hearing aids, then buying them online is a terrific option as long as you buy them from a reputable retailer. We are starting to see a number of legitimate over-the-counter hearing aids hit the market here in 2023 from companies like Sony, Lexie, Jabra, and even Soundwave, all of which I've personally reviewed myself, so I know that they're legitimate devices from reputable companies.

On my website, HearingUp.com, I have only the best over-the-counter hearing aids that would not make it onto my website unless I approve them first. Not only can you purchase these over-the-counter hearing aids from my website, but I also give you detailed reviews telling you all of the pros and cons of these hearing aids so you can make an informed decision before purchasing, after doing your research, if you're still not sure which over-the-counter hearing aids are most appropriate for you, make sure that you shoot us a message through HearingUp.com so we can help you out. If you wanna purchase over-the-counter hearing aids elsewhere, that's totally cool. Just make sure that you purchase them directly from the hearing aid manufacturer or from a local hearing aid clinic who can also provide you with some in-clinic support. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Amazon. I buy a ton of stuff from Amazon for my clinic as well as personally, but there are a few things that I will not buy from Amazon, and hearing aids are definitely one of them. At the end of the day, I am all about buying over-the-counter hearing aids online. You just have to be really careful because if you're not, you could get ripped off like thousands of other people before you. That's it for this video. If you have any questions, leave them in the comment section below. If you like the video, please share it. And if you wanna see other videos just like this one, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Also, feel free to check out my website, HearingUp.com.