Discount hearing aids usually mean that there is a price for hearing aids that is below the retail selling price of a certain hearing aid model. Unfortunately in the United States, it is very hard to purchase a brand name hearing aid at a discount because the manufacturers encourage audiologists to maximize their revenues. For example, a brand name hearing aid manufacturer may sell a hearing aid to an audiologist for between $475 and $800 USD. The audiologist will usually mark it up at least 300%. so the cheapest brand name hearing aid you can purchase at an audiologist's office will cost a minimum of about $1,400 USD each for a low-end model with minimum functionality.
There are audiologists who have websites who do sell brand-name discount hearing aids. However, the discounts are usually no more than about 15% of the retail price at an audiologist's office. Even then you will probably be looking at about $1,500 USD each.
To us at http://hearingaidscentral.com, the words "discount hearing aids" mean just that: quality hearing aids manufactured in the USA and costing between 50% and 70% of the cost of brand name hearing aids. So why choose a discount hearing aid model like ours that is not from a well-know manufacturer? Think about this: for the most part, all of the components for all hearing aids world-wide come from the same manufacturer - Knolls Electronics in Lisle Illinois i.e. the microphone, the receiver, and the amplifier. The only difference in a brand-name hearing aid an one of our discount hearing aids may be the DSP (digital Signal Processing) chip - there are about six DSP chip manufacturers world-wide. The manufacturing costs will be the same unless a manufacturer has a highly automated production line in which case the cost per unit to manufacture will be less that other manufacturers. We can purchase the top-of-the-line hearing aid components for between $25 and $100. Add into that the cost of the DSP chip ($80 - $20 depending on volume). Add in the labor costs and you get a pretty good idea how much it costs to manufacture a hearing aid anywhere in the world.
We at http://hearingaidscentral.com add in a resonable markup to sell our discount hearing aids directly to you, the consumer, by bypassing the traditional audiology distribution network where all the markups occur.
Most hearing aid features and functions from brand-name manufacturers is marketing hype. Discount hearing aids like those for sale on our website offer the same quality and reliability as those from any other manufacturer. |
