From depression and deteriorating relationships with friends and family to reported lower quality of life, hearing loss casts a wide net. And now, a new study confirms those with hearing loss suffer yet another cost: higher medical bills.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), compared the costs of healthcare for a large group of 562,000 privately insured individuals between the ages of 55 and 64, both with and without hearing loss. In addition to being in the same age range, the subjects were similar in terms of employment and the presence of chronic health conditions. Type of insurance coverage was also similar.

Researchers examined healthcare data such as inpatient costs, outpatient costs, prescriptions and hearing care over an 18-month time period and discovered those with hearing loss had significantly higher medical bills than those without hearing loss. How much higher? Overall, those with hearing loss had medical bills that were 33 percent higher than those without hearing loss.

One could surmise that the difference lies simply in the cost of treating hearing care alone, but that is not the case. Yes, the costs of healthcare were higher for those with treated hearing loss than for those without any hearing loss at all, but those who spent the most on healthcare were those with untreated hearing loss. Even taking into account adjustments to the data for those who received hearing treatment such as hearing aids, those being treated for hearing loss still paid significantly less for healthcare than those who had hearing loss but did not receive hearing treatment.

Researchers stress that further study is needed to understand the exact reasons behind the higher medical costs, and how early adoption of hearing aids and other treatment might impact costs in the long run.

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