Does Medicare cover bone-anchored hearing aids (BAHA)?
Yes. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) revised its hearing aid definition so that Auditory Osseointegrated and Auditory Brainstem Implant (ABI) devices and related services are clearly covered under Medicare as prosthetic devices. The revised policy, published on November 10, 2005, resulted from information provided by ASHA’s Health Care Economics Committee and coordinated by Robert Fifer. Change Request 4038, Pub 100-02, Transmittal 39 [PDF] of the CMS Manual System, can be found on the CMS Web site. Effective December 12, 2005, the updated Medicare policy states that prosthetic devices now include “osseointegrated implants to the mastoid process of the temporal bone and auditory brainstem devices.” A revised definition of hearing aids and auditory implants in the Medicare Benefit Policy Manual, Chapter 16, section 100, describes air conduction and bone conduction hearing aids. Now, it also describes specific devices that replace the function of the middle ear, coch
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