Providers
Hearing Health Care Providers:
AUDIENT facilitates low cost access to hearing health care for low income populations. It a humanitarian enterprise with a strong social mission.
The advantages to your involvement are meaningful. When you become part of the AUDIENT alliance, you know that proper administrative controls are in place to assure that all providers in the alliance receive the same reimbursement amounts.
AUDIENT will be responsible for income qualifying the patient. AUDIENT will process all billing for the cost of the hearing aids which are ordered by the AUDIENT participating provider upon authorization from AUDIENT and for the fixed fitting fees. As a provider, you will receive 100% of the fixed fee charged to the patient upon sign off of acceptance of the hearing aids by the income qualified participant and the dispensing provider.
AUDIENT will process your payment in a timely manner. You will receive your fees soon after AUDIENT receives the signed rescission form that the patient has signed off that he or she accepts the hearing aids and the outcome measure survey.
AUDIENT will eliminate much of the administrative costs usually associated with serving low income patients. You will not have to fill out Medicaid forms or other government paper work.
The fees for fitting patients will reflect services to include hearing aid fitting and orientation, three aural rehabilitation follow up visits, and administration of an outcome measure questionnaire, from which outcome data will be collected.
Some patients may have a current hearing test and will provide a copy at the time of their appointment. If a patient requires a hearing test, then the provider office may be choose one of the following options:
- Seek reimbursement under patient personal health insurance, Medicaid, or Medicare;
- Bill the patient directly;
- Waive your charges for this diagnostic examination.
AUDIENT does not offer financing; however, AUDIENT will refer hearing aid candidates to local assistive technology financial loan programs where they exist.
AUDIENT informs resource partners about the program by sending free full colored brochures to any organization that is dedicated to helping the underserved. These organizations included Hearing Loss Association of America, SERTOMA, the Hike Foundation, Area Agencies on Aging, senior centers, school audiologists, state agencies for the deaf and hard of hearing, assistive technology programs, and more. AUDIENT also maintains a website with updated information about the program and downloadable forms.
AUDIENT is proud that the media includes our contact information in articles like the one that appeared in the US News & World Report: Good Vibrations: "They're still hearing aids. But they're better—and smaller," or in the syndicated newspaper column Savvy Senior by Jim Miller, a regular contributor to the NBC Today Show. We also appear in the professional magazine, Advance for Audiologists with a series of articles about low income hearing aid candidates who have received help through the AUDIENT alliance.
The AUDIENT link appears on many websites dedicated to helping the underserved with their hearing needs.
Providing hearing health care services to populations that have previously lacked access fulfills a broader mission for Hearing Health Care Providers that can be recognized as contributing to communities. Community involvement is not only the right thing to do for humanity, but it also can benefit your business. When you become an AUDIENT participating provider, AUDIENT will help promote your practice by supplying a press release for your local newspaper explaining your role as a provider in the AUDIENT program alliance.
To become a provider, call 1-877-AUDIENT and request a participating provider form, or download it here. Fill out the form and fax it back to the AUDIENT program. There is no cost to you as a provider to join the AUDIENT program alliance.
Please have patients that you think may qualify contact the AUDIENT program directly at 1-877-AUDIENT. They can begin the qualification process, and that can start today.
By joining the AUDIENT alliance, you can help minimize the disparity that exists in this country and around the world by providing accessible hearing care to all who could not otherwise have access.
Updated April 14, 2008
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