Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 462 posts

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#91

Post by etaioinshrdlu »

tristor wrote: post #84
xmprt wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One pretty big (and relatively unknown) law is that your doctor needs to give you your vision prescription so you can buy glasses elsewhere (usually for much cheaper). I think a lot of them get around this by letting you look for glasses while waiting and not telling you that this law exists.

The bigger issue is that a prescription alone is not enough to order new glasses, you also need pupillary distance measurements in order to ensure the lenses are ground correctly. Many many optometrists will not provide these, only the legally obligated prescription. While for most people who have minimum prescriptions you can use a phone app or similar to get a rough PD, for anyone with serious prescriptions even mi…

I've probably been to 5 optometrists over the years and they all provided PD.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#92

Post by dr_dshiv »

mbg721 wrote: post #87
dsizzle wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why vision checks require a doctor at all. In the end, they're just relying on your responses anyway: "What's better: A or B"? In fact, I'd go further and say it doesn't even require another person. I, for one, am glad to see this bill.

Vision checks have also changed a lot in the last five years or so. I have a pretty strong prescription and always used to do rounds of reading charts and "A or B", and now there's a machine that scans my eyes and gets it very close to right, with an adjustment or two at the end.

12 years ago, I walked into a second hand eye glasses shop in India and they had one of these machines. It was amazingly effective. I felt duped by all the optometrist appointments asking me about A or B.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#93

Post by dfadsadsf »

cf100clunk wrote: post #25
mwint wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but I can also buy an improperly tuned chainsaw and cut my arm off. I’d argue that there should be a giant warning on the box about proper tuning, and leave it at that.

Reading glasses can be exchanged or refunded at most stores if they are not suitable. I would hope the FDA specifies the same for OTC hearing aids.

Setting FDA requriemetns on return is example of overregulation that is frankly not needed - I struggle to come up with online/DTC brand that does not have free 30 days return policy. Virtually all electronics on Amazon has free return. This is pretty much industry standard.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#94

Post by JCM9 »

skybrian wrote: post #76
JCM9 wrote: post #55

There are a number of healthcare areas in the US that have been protected by regulation, but it’s increasingly unclear if this is good for patients, consumers, or public health at large. The increasing sentiment seems to be probably not. Vision care is another area I’d expect to see more changes and disruption coming down the pipeline. Vision care is very important and advanced cases require special skills, but it’s…

Getting new glasses is different from screening for eye diseases, though it's typically done at the same time. I doubt a GP would have the special equipment they use for screening? It's pretty specialized. Apparently the need for this gets more important as you get older: https://healthy.kaiserpermanente.org/health-wellness/health-...

Many optometrists don’t do much more than use a hand held scope to look into your eyes. I’d imagine most GPs either have that on hand already or could get it easily. It’s not like you need an MRI machine in the office to do an eye exam.

Yes some office have fancier equipment, but here it’s unclear if that’s actually better for patients and public health or just a way to bill more. Doing a basic exam and then referring those to true specialists is generally the model followed by nearly everything else in healthcare.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#95

Post by dboreham »

JCM9 wrote: post #55

There are a number of healthcare areas in the US that have been protected by regulation, but it’s increasingly unclear if this is good for patients, consumers, or public health at large. The increasing sentiment seems to be probably not. Vision care is another area I’d expect to see more changes and disruption coming down the pipeline. Vision care is very important and advanced cases require special skills, but it’s…

I find Costco to be a reasonable workaround.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#96

Post by fullstop »

kiba wrote: post #5

Some feature requests for hearing aid: Can we get hearing aids that are bigger? These small hearing aids make it easier to lose, and I do not mind looking "disabled" to people. Also would like to use bluetooth to both locate the hearing aids, and to connect to devices as needed. Would be cool if the battery can be recharged as needed, maybe through usb-c if possible, but magnetic charging would be acceptable.

I'm picturing D cell earrings over here.

I'm not of the age or occupation where I need hearing aids, but I think that I'd like overnight inductive charging, and I'd take them out and charge them while sleeping.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#97

Post by forbiddenvoid »

mbg721 wrote: post #87
dsizzle wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why vision checks require a doctor at all. In the end, they're just relying on your responses anyway: "What's better: A or B"? In fact, I'd go further and say it doesn't even require another person. I, for one, am glad to see this bill.

Vision checks have also changed a lot in the last five years or so. I have a pretty strong prescription and always used to do rounds of reading charts and "A or B", and now there's a machine that scans my eyes and gets it very close to right, with an adjustment or two at the end.

This machine is not new. I remember it being used to approximate my prescription when I joined the US Army almost 20 years ago.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#98

Post by DeusExMachina »

bckygldstn wrote: post #47
kristofferR wrote: post #7

Contact lenses next? It's amazingly stupid that I, as a tourist, who knows exactly what types of contacts I need, may need to get a US prescription for contacts.

For the commenters asking: this applies to contact lenses, not eye glasses. From the Contact Lens Rule [1]: "a contact lens seller cannot provide contact lenses to its customer unless the seller either obtains a copy of the prescription or verifies the prescription information with the prescriber" The Eyeglass Rule [2] doesn't contain this stipulation. https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/rules/rulemaking-regulatory-... h…

It is amazing how things that we take for granted somewhere do not work in other countries.

Here in The Netherlands, I can walk in a shop and get contact lenses off a shelf. It does not even need to be a dedicated shop. These are available in generic care shops where you can also buy shampoo, vitamins, and even some medicines that don't require prescriptions.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#99

Post by gumby »

I just ordered some AirPods Pro to see if they will be adequate.

I’m not sure hearing aids can really replace headphones for phone calls etc until both HAs and phones support BT 5.2, and I don’t really want buy several $K of hearing aids that only work some of the time.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#100

Post by gumby »

xmprt wrote: post #71
JCM9 wrote: post #55

There are a number of healthcare areas in the US that have been protected by regulation, but it’s increasingly unclear if this is good for patients, consumers, or public health at large. The increasing sentiment seems to be probably not. Vision care is another area I’d expect to see more changes and disruption coming down the pipeline. Vision care is very important and advanced cases require special skills, but it’s…

One pretty big (and relatively unknown) law is that your doctor needs to give you your vision prescription so you can buy glasses elsewhere (usually for much cheaper). I think a lot of them get around this by letting you look for glasses while waiting and not telling you that this law exists.

They often leave off the IPD (distance between your pupils) to make the prescription useless (you can measure the distance yourself).
Post reply on HN