The President of the Association of Hearing Instrument Practitioners of Ontario says a recent memo from the Ministry of Health addresses some concerns the organization had about proposed changes to a grant program that helps people purchase hearing aids.
The March 27 Ministry memo says audiologists and hearing instrument specialists will continue to be accepted as authorizers of the Assistive Devices Program grant.
The ADP program helps people with physical disabilities pay for equipment like wheelchairs and hearing aids.
Applications for the grant used to require a signature from a prescriber as well, but the Ministry memo says forms with that section blank will be accepted.
A change the Ministry made is to no longer require a physician to sign as a prescriber, in a bid to help ease their workload. Audiologists can also sign as a prescriber for the ADP program grant.
All of this comes after the province was considering a policy change, which would have left hearing instrument specialists without authorizer status. That was set to come into effect in January, but was frozen before it could take effect.
AHIP president Chris Arnold says while the Ministry update “helps the larger players” it fails to support medium and small practice members, who have lost access to hearing aid prescriptions from physicians.
“Physicians said they are spending too much time signing prescriptions for patients, especially when it is something they are not as familiar with, which is hearing aids. That is kind of our expertise,” says Arnold.
Meantime, Ontario Association of Professional Audiology Clinics (OAPAC) Co-President Hish Husein says he feels this move by the province is good to ease the workload of physicians as they are already over burdened.
“I don’t believe there will be any issue with regards to rural patients in an area where they do not have access to an audiologist,” says Husein.
Arnold and Husein say the province is back at the drawing board to take another look at the potential policy changes to the hearing aid industry, but do not have a timeline for how that process will go. They add both organizations will be back at the table to talk.
