SHOW NOTES:

Ignoring hearing loss doesn’t just affect what you hear — it impacts your health, safety, and finances. In this episode, Dr. Stephanie Michaelides, Dr. Dawn Heiman, and Lindsey Doherty reveal the hidden costs of untreated hearing loss, explaining how a simple hearing test can make all the difference.

The True Cost of Untreated Hearing Loss
Untreated hearing loss can lead to cognitive decline, social isolation, depression, and even increased fall risk. As Dr. Heiman notes, “You’re more likely to fall if you have an untreated hearing loss.” The hosts explain that missed sounds can mean missed cues — from conversations and warning signals to environmental changes that help maintain balance and safety.

The financial impact is significant too. Medical appointments, therapy, and assistive care often follow years of avoidance — adding thousands in long-term costs that could have been prevented with early diagnosis and treatment.

Hearing Loss and Cognitive Health
Hearing is directly tied to brain function. As Dr. Michaelides points out, untreated hearing loss can accelerate cognitive decline, sometimes mistaken for dementia. Regular hearing screenings, especially for adults over 40, can help identify and slow these changes before they become permanent.

Breaking the Stigma Around Hearing Aids
Modern hearing aids are smaller, smarter, and more effective than ever before. Unlike older models that amplified all sounds, today’s devices target only the frequencies you’re missing — helping you reconnect socially and professionally without frustration or feedback noise.

Take the First Step: Get a Hearing Test
Whether you’re an active professional or a retiree, hearing screenings are fast, painless, and often covered by insurance. Advanced Audiology Consultants even offers Free Screening Fridays, making it easier than ever to check your hearing health.

If you or a loved one have been avoiding a test, start today — because knowledge is power, and prevention costs far less than regret.

To see the video edition of this episode with closed captioning, please go to 👉 Hearing Wellness Journey Podcast

Transcript:

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Voiceover: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Hearing Wellness Journey podcast, an exploration of determination, hope, self-discovery, and triumph. We'll share the personal experiences of those that are living with hearing loss and provide a haven for their stories to show others that they are not alone in this journey. Please welcome your hosts.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Hello, I'm Dr. Michaelides.

Lindsey Doherty : I'm Lindsey Doherty.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: And I'm Dr. Dawn Heiman.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: And today we are gonna talk about the hidden cost of untreated hearing loss.

Lindsey Doherty : The cost would be not just in cognition, it could be financial.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Mm-hmm.

Lindsey Doherty : Because of doctor's appointments and additional medical costs. You pay for it in your quality of life too.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: You're more likely to fall if you have an untreated hearing loss.

Like you said, there's [00:01:00] financial costs, there's social costs, mental health costs. Your cost of living can go up if you need assistance from medical or nursing care, non-medical assistance.

Lindsey Doherty : Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: So let's go down that road. Someone doesn't wanna have their hearing tested. What do they look like at Thanksgiving?

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Right. It's definitely very socially isolating. That's another thing too. Is it because your mother or your grandmother is not listening, not participating, not being part of that conversation? Maybe they are borderline dementia?

Is it dementia? Or could it just be untreated hearing loss? It very well could just be untreated hearing loss, and a simple screening would be something that would figure it out. It takes 10 minutes, you know?

Dr. Dawn Heiman: And what if they're not a grandma?

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Right.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: What if they're in their forties or fifties and they have a hearing loss at work? What does that look like?

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Right!

Dr. Dawn Heiman: And they're saying, "I'll do [00:02:00] something once I retire." Why would you wait? Talk about losing money.

Lindsey Doherty : Well, right, because what if you then can't do your own job? Because you're not able to communicate with your team. And that will cost you both financially and probably mentally if you have to lose your job or stop working because you just can't hear.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Or people just think you're not that smart because you answer questions inappropriately, or you're getting the phone numbers wrong when you answer the phone.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Right.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: And you're supposed to call back this client or something.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: And I do like what we talked about before too, is that, if you are a 7-year-old, and you have a mild hearing loss, you are seeing your doctors, you are seeing your pediatrician, you are getting referred to the audiologist. But if you are a 45-year-old or 50-year-old, and you've got that same mild hearing loss, why is it okay for that person to not get treated?

You're gonna do something for a child, but you're not gonna do it for an adult? And they're both missing the same exact thing. So why is that okay?

Dr. Dawn Heiman: You're so right. Think [00:03:00] about it. In our day and age, they say marketing has increased tenfold in the last 10 years over what the marketing tools were for a hundred years, let's say. It used to be there was a Sears catalog, or there were flyers. There was a billboard.

And if you were in the marketing world or in a regular business sense, you knew: you wrote a tagline, you had imagery, and you sold to your customers. But in the last 10 years, so much has changed, and there's so much learning that has to happen online. Our newspapers are now digital, and they're in paper, but those who work at the newspapers or these press companies, even magazines, had to learn digital. Learn.

If you're having a hard time learning new things. And you are not ready to retire yet, but you can't hear well, it's gonna be hard for [00:04:00] you to be able to do your job with the new tools that everyone's requiring you to use. Just to use Microsoft Teams is hard.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Right? Or if suddenly your business is hybrid, and you're only at work two days a week, but you're doing Zoom calls three days a week, and you can't understand what people are saying. That's hard. And faking it is stressful as all get out.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: It's very stressful. Then stress is gonna make everything worse on top of it. Stress makes everything worse. And then if you are anxious to go to work, you know? I've actually had patients who had to quit their job and do something else because they could not communicate.

Didn't have hearing aids. Didn't even get a screening. So why are you changing jobs or changing what you're doing just because of an untreated hearing loss?

Lindsey Doherty : And that's not just their job that's so taxing financially, but also their quality of life, because then they're not feeling good about it. They're struggling. That stress. So now they're [00:05:00] seeing, maybe a counselor or maybe a psychologist or psychiatrist. So much more is then happening because...

Dr. Dawn Heiman: They're in denial.

Lindsey Doherty : ...it's a snowball effect. Well, in denial slash they don't know, because nobody ever told them to go get tested. Maybe they don't know they have a family history of hearing loss.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: What if they say something to their doctor and their doctor goes, "Ah, I think you're fine. You seem to be fine."

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Which is what happens a lot.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Discounted it.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Yeah.

Lindsey Doherty : Yeah.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Yeah, you're right. Get a screening and then find out.

But imagine if you're, I don't know anybody who has to see for their job? And you don't get the cheater glasses. You don't get your eyes tested. You don't find out you have a special condition that cheaters don't just work for. Or you're a truck driver, or you're supposed to be reading spreadsheets on the screen, or you're a stockbroker.

If you had a vision issue, you would do something about it. I think. But some people [00:06:00] don't know what they don't know. I never knew that I could improve my vision. I was in the second grade, and I remember being in Sears, and I got my first pair of glasses and I was like, "Whoa!" I didn't know what I didn't know.

Sometimes you need someone to test you, fail a screening, get the diagnostic testing, and then see where the transformation starts.

Lindsey Doherty : And the hearing screening is as non-invasive and painless as a vision screening. Like where you're reading, "How low can you see? What's the lowest line you can read?"

And it's the same thing. Put on some headphones, couple presentation of frequencies. And then it's "yes or no?" And you get at least a baseline understanding of, "Alright, what are my next steps?"

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Right. And it's not just a part of age that you have to accept. This is not how it is anymore. And the hearing aids are so much better than they used to be. People are thinking of this old technology that was on their grandparents that was just whistling all the time.

That is [00:07:00] not how hearing aids are anymore. They've really come a long way. They're small. They really work, especially in those background noises. People have the misconception that hearing aids are gonna make everything loud. It's not true. They only make the sounds that you're not hearing come into your realm so you could hear the things that you're not hearing. It doesn't make loud sounds louder. And it's gonna really help in those situations where it's difficult. You don't have to avoid anything anymore, which I feel like some people do because, "Why am I gonna go if I can't hear anything?"

And we hear that all the time.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Or let's say you're at work or you're at home. The little subtle sounds you didn't know you were missing can mean a lot with nuances. Let's say your significant other grunted or groaned. You can pick up on that, that they really didn't wanna go to dinner tonight.

And you can talk about that. Or at work, someone's not buying into a conversation or you heard someone giggle and you turn around and you would've normally missed that opportunity to have a really great conversation with that person. But some people are wondering, "how does this cost [00:08:00] me? If I fall, how would hearing and hearing aids have even helped?"

Lindsey Doherty : Right.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Sometimes you can hear your slippers hit the rug sooner than you would've seen the change in the flooring, and you could prevent yourself from falling right there.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Or hearing your dog snoring. Who's in front of your...

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Oh...

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: ...steps?

Who's laying on the rug...

Dr. Dawn Heiman: That you didn't see...

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Someone might have a little experience with that. I dunno.

Lindsey Doherty : Only if he snores.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Some of us trip on dogs. Yes. But, right. Maybe if I had heard the dog, I wouldn't have tripped, right? How do we stay standing? It's our proprioceptive skills. Our toes. Our feet. What if you've had knee surgery? What if you have neuropathy of the toes? Then you need to rely on your ears. Your balance system.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: See where you're at. Are you falling? Are you tripping? Can you balance yourself out? Can you rely on your eyes? Well, if it's dark, you can't. If you have a new prescription, it's hard.

And your balance system tries to tell the brain, "Something's happening," [00:09:00] but our balance system is with our ears. So how many times, Dr. Stephanie, have you ever tested someone, back in the day when you did balance testing, did you find that he equated with the hearing?

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Well, yeah, I had so many people who were coming in for vestibular testing who were elderly, but they were also told that, "This is normal. You're old, so you're dizzy." And then that's just part of it. And it's not. It's not. But most of those people also had hearing loss, almost all of them.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Yeah. This is preventable. It's kinda like little kids. We tell them to look both ways before you cross the street. We don't tell it once. We tell them a thousand times, so that when they're by themselves, they automatically think, "I have to look both ways before I cross the street." If we don't tell a person even once, let alone three times, "You're more likely to fall. You're more likely to fall."

Go home. Pull the rugs. Make sure you have handles in your bathroom. Make sure that all these things could help you prevent falling, [00:10:00] because if you fall, studies have showed that it's going to cost our Medicare system a lot of money. It costs you time away from your family. It costs you independence. All of this. And you could end up having to spend more money on 24 hour care or, who knows what, because you maybe could have prevented that fall?

Lindsey Doherty : Right. And with that, we had talked on the side a little while ago, but it's the time at the hospital. It's the time for surgery, if you need it. It's the time for rehab, or the cost for that. Being in a rehab facility. At home care. Still going to and getting transportation to those physical therapy appointments. Do you need that nursing staff or just home help? Do you need to make your home accessible?

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Oh, yeah.

Lindsey Doherty : My grandparents had to move, because they could not make their home, their little [00:11:00] bungalow, accessible for my grandpa who was then wheelchair bound. It's a lot.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Did he have any hearing loss?

Lindsey Doherty : I don't know. He probably did, because of his exposure, both in a factory setting and military. Nothing that was diagnosed.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Was he in denial? Was it not socially acceptable to go get his ears checked?

Did his doctor say, "You know what? You're having all these other doctor's appointments, why bother about your hearing?"

Lindsey Doherty : He did not. He stopped going to doctors because of just his medical history. He was done with doctors. A lot of cancers. Lot of other things. And so he was done. But he lived a very solitary life. For multiple reasons.

We'd go visit, and he didn't really participate in conversations. Now, we'd sit him in front of the Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, and we'd have that TV cranked. And then he'd be saying the answers. He knew all the answers. He was very bright, but if he didn't [00:12:00] hear it, he didn't participate.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: And that's what happens. Hearing loss can be very socially isolating, so that's what we wanna avoid. That's what we really wanna avoid. And that's like worst case scenario. You don't have to go down that hole and be that bad. Start sooner.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Right. Say it takes four to seven years before someone does something, once they know that they have a hearing loss. But I believe that the caveat is: once a professional tells you, "You have a hearing loss," then the timer starts. So, if someone knows for years that they have a problem, and they're hiding it, it's not till they see a professional that says, "You need to do something about your hearing" that then they're like, "I'll think about it, but I'm not ready yet."

So, you need at least the screening. And we've seen how many people that - they had a sudden accident, a sudden sensory neural hearing loss due to autoimmune disorder, a hormonal change, mitochondrial, some kind of 'in their family' recessive gene - their hearing suddenly changes.

They were wondering if it would ever happen. But they didn't know [00:13:00] the date on the calendar when it was gonna happen. And then we're all wondering, "So has this always been here?" They're like, "I don't know." They've never had their hearing tested. So we don't know if they always had, let's say, a cute little cookie bite hearing loss, and now suddenly there's a high frequency one or vice versa.

We need to know more about you. You need to know. Just like if you have a mammogram done or an MRI of your brain, and let's say everything's normal, but they find little spots and they're like, "I think that's okay." Next time they repeat it, did the spot change? Did it get larger? Is it still there? And then they, after they say five times, they're like, "Yep, that's you. We've always seen that spot. It's no big deal."

I was at a presentation - Dr. Kevin Zhan is a neurotologist at Northwestern - and he showed this slide with all these different cochleas. Cochlea is your inner ear. It looks like a conch shell. I assumed everybody has identical cochleas. I didn't realize that there are different shapes of them. If we don't [00:14:00] know what is typically you, then we don't know. How many times we test somebody's hearing and we find something asymmetrical, a little wonky or whatever?

10 years out, we're looking back and we're like, Oh yeah, that's normal. That's you." If you don't have a baseline, we have nothing to compare to.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: I feel like hearing loss happens very slowly. Usually. Like for the average person, just presbycusis. It happens very slowly. So sometimes you don't realize that it's getting worse. It's happening over many years.

A lot of times, if patients had the hearing loss that they have when they come to us - that is after that seven years or six years or whatever - if they had a Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss, they'd be in right away.

They'd be like, "Oh my gosh, I can't hear like I did." All those  Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Losses, those people are getting hearing loss or hearing aids immediately, because they know what they're missing. Because yesterday, they could hear, and today here's this loss. And they're instantly like, "Please fix this. This is horrible."

But when it happens so slowly over time, it's something they get used to, and they start [00:15:00] talking louder, because they're talking to get their voice to the same level they did when they were in their twenties. That's why getting a screening, especially 40, 50, is a good way to know, "Am I just slowly having this hearing loss?" Why is it different five years later than it was five years earlier? So it's just always a good idea to get a baseline like that.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: You bring up an excellent point. It's just like skin cancer. We are so used to our bodies, and we're so used to seeing ourselves, that maybe a little freckle or something that seems to have always have been there, and it might grow, grow, grow gradually over time. And we didn't even notice that it looks completely different than it did 10 years ago. That's why you're sent for a body scan by a dermatologist.

Again, very slow. Gradual. From something. An over exposure. Maybe when you were a kid. And we have the safety nets for like, "Have you had your skin checked in the past 10 years?" If there's nothing alarming, then maybe they'll say, "We'll see you in two or five years." And then, if they do find [00:16:00] something, then they start saying, "I wanna see you every year or every six months."

But you have to start with the screening, because you don't know what you don't know, right? I look at something, and I think it looks like a normal freckle. A dermatologist gets that ultraviolet, special scope that's magnified, and they're like, "I don't like the look of that." I'm like, "Really?"

That is something that they studied. This is something that we've studied. And it makes sense to just get a hearing screening. If you have a family member that's in denial of something, everybody knows it, but they don't wanna talk about it. At least let a professional say, "Hey, I noticed something," so we can start the clock sooner.

They deserve to hear clearly. They shouldn't have to fake it. They shouldn't have to socially regress. We all want to retire someday and have all of our faculties and enjoy the music and the food and the experience and the sights and to [00:17:00] be strong and not fall.

Lindsey Doherty : Have the finances to do that.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: No, true. Because what if. That's true.

Lindsey Doherty : It's a compound effect.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: I never thought about it like that. Think about that. Let's say you have your finances all in a row, and you're retiring. Let's say you're 65. You have the money, but then suddenly you fall. You're hospitalized. You're paying $4,200 a month for that rehab facility for six months to get you back. To try to get home. Then you have to do some kind of wheelchair ramp to the front of your house, as you're rehabbing. You've got 24 hour care, and then finally you get out of it. Now you just blew through how much money. You're like, "I guess we're not gonna Europe in the next 10 years."

Right? Good point.

Lindsey Doherty : Yeah.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Yeah. Sad.

Lindsey Doherty : So it all boils down. So it doesn't snowball. Just get a screening. Again, very non-invasive. 10 minutes.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: And most insurances will cover it too, so [00:18:00] it's not like you have to worry about that.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Well, we're gonna have an event soon. We're gonna try to do it once a month: free screening Fridays.

Lindsey Doherty : That's right!

Dr. Dawn Heiman: And then if you refer - not necessarily failed, but you didn't quite pass - it's just a screening. Most insurances will pay for the diagnostic.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: Mm-hmm.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: We give you a report. We send it to your doctor. If you have been thinking about this, or you wanna do something, then we can do more later. But you're right, Dr. Michaelides, most insurances will cover it. Medicare will cover a hearing diagnostic eval. We will cover the cost of the free hearing screening. Let's just get the screening done.

Lindsey Doherty : Yeah, because knowledge is power.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Yeah.

Lindsey Doherty : And we like to give you that. I am one of those people: I like to dive in, and I get all the details, all the options, and then it's like, "Alright, now that I have the information, I know where I need to go."

Dr. Dawn Heiman: You know... we've had many people who've asked, [00:19:00] "how do I get my spouse to come in? I don't know." And there've been people who were like, "Hey, can I get my hearing tested?"

And they bring along that buddy that they're concerned about, and they were like, "I'll go first." And they're like, "Look! It wasn't painful." And then get the other person to have their hearing tested. Funniest thing ever though is when the person who brought the person that they're concerned about actually had a hearing loss, and the other one didn't.

Lindsey Doherty : Oh.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: But it's like I, I feel like people are so ready to go get glasses as soon as they can't see anything. But this, getting your hearing screening should just be part of everything medically that you do. You go to your primary care for just a physical. You go get your eyes checked once a year.

Hearing screenings should be part of that as well, just as your general health, like you said, dermatologist, all of those things. Hearing screening should be part of that as well. It's just part of your general healthcare.

Lindsey Doherty : Yes.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Yeah.

Lindsey Doherty : We need to do this to save your quality of life. Your cognition. [00:20:00] And your finances.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: How about, if you're listening to this podcast, and you are a podcast junkie, imagine not being able to listen to podcasts anymore? You would do something about it, right?

And now the new AirPods... a lot of people, I think, are getting their hearing tested so that they get the right diagnosis, the right amount, and then they can try to go find something elsewhere. And if the over-the-counter stuff doesn't quite work, we've got other things for you.

But don't just do a hearing screening in the airport through your AirPod pros. You're gonna get some blasting headphones that end up hurting your hearing, so let's do it in the sound booth and do it right.

Lindsey Doherty : Yep.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Alright. We'll see you at the next podcast. Do we know what the topic is?

Lindsey Doherty : Hidden medical causes of tinnitus?

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Oh. What causes your hearing to change, and what causes the tinnitus?

Lindsey Doherty : Yeah.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Yeah. That's good one.

Lindsey Doherty : [00:21:00] So, because it's not just your hearing, there are other factors that can be involved.

Dr. Dawn Heiman: Absolutely.

Alright, we'll see you next time.

Dr. Stephanie Michaelides: All right. Bye.

Voiceover: Thank you for joining us on this episode of the Hearing Wellness Journey podcast. For more information about what we do and the services we provide, please visit our website at HearingWellnessJourney.com/podcast, where you can find more resources based on today's discussion, as well as request to be a member of our Hearing Wellness Journey community on Facebook.

That's available for our listeners exclusively on HearingWellnessJourney.com/podcast.