Blue Tooth Technology Cuts Cost of Hearing Aids

As many as 300 million people around the world need hearing aids. The vast majority of the 7 million people who get them annually are in the U.S. and Europe.

One big reason is cost. On average, a set of hearing aids rings up a tab of about $4,000. Most insurance policies don't cover them.

A company called Sound World Solutions is trying to do something about the limited reach of hearing aids by creating a high-quality hearing device that costs less than a tenth the normal price.

Stavros Basseas is showing me around his development lab and hearing clinic in a strip mall in suburban Chicago. Basseas began as an electrical engineer in the hearing aid industry, but working with patients directly in this small clinic helped him understand their needs more deeply.

"It was not just an engineering project anymore," he says. "It had a human face." Basseas says when people came to him for help he had a chance to talk to them about the effects of hearing loss, especially the social isolation most people experience.

But when they put on a new hearing device, Basseas says patients react right away. "Sometimes they cry, because it was like talking to their heart, because they know what is happening," he says.

Wayne Jagusch, one of Basseas' patients, knows the feeling. "It's terrible when you're with people and you can't understand what they're saying," he says. "You sit there and smile like an idiot and nod your head, and you don't know whether they're saying something good or bad."

Years ago, Basseas fitted Jagusch with top-quality hearing aids that cost thousands of dollars. He brought them in for adjustment on the day I visited. But Basseas also recently gave Jagusch a prototype of the $300 device the company has developed. Jagusch likes it.

"This is the best I've had so far, and I've gone through a bunch of different devices," Jagusch says. "I like the adjustability of it."

Besides cost, one of the big hurdles to the use of hearing aids is the number of visits required to get the devices adjusted properly. Sound World Solutions addresses that problem by making its device adjustable through a Bluetooth connection to a smartphone.