Re: Letter for Insurance appeal - Gerald

[Guest guest]

Just to comment on UHC for NYS Employees....... they do pay for Cochlear

Implants without there being any need to appeal. They paid for both of mine

which were sequentially implanted.

Happy Hearing!

Carol

Boca Raton, FL

N24C 3G left ear -12/11/01

N Freedom- right ear- implanted 3/01/06 activated 4/6/06

Re: Letter for Insurance appeal

Suzanne,

While I am not a CI candidate I have seen it mentioned before to get the

manufacturer of the CI that you want implanted to act on your behalf. I too have

United Health Care as a State of New York employee and I am discouraged by your

post. But the CI manufacturers, at least Cochlear and AB have experts who

advocate for their clients. The CI Center also would be a good source of expert

advice. Good luck! - Gerald

Suzanne <suzwalker@...> wrote:

Hi,

Well, we got the dreaded denial letter from United Health Care Monday stating

they would not cover my CI surgery. Their reason for the denial is our policy

don't cover CI's " except to the extent needed for repair of damages caused by

bodily injury " . My loss is progressive sensorineural hearing loss. We are going

to appeal again and I need to write another letter to go with this second

appeal. I know several of you have been through this and would appreciate

" hearing " what you put in your letters. Sometimes just the way things are worded

makes a BIG difference and I need to really stress that a CI is my only option

left to hear.

Thanks

Suzanne W

[Guest guest]

Carol, I read here many times that people have normal hearing and the next

morning hearing is zero. It is great to know that a sudden lost of hearing is

not the end of my life. Thanks again for the information. - Gerald

Carol <carol@...> wrote: Just to comment on UHC for NYS

Employees....... they do pay for Cochlear Implants without there being any need

to appeal. They paid for both of mine which were sequentially implanted.

Happy Hearing!

Carol

Boca Raton, FL

N24C 3G left ear -12/11/01

N Freedom- right ear- implanted 3/01/06 activated 4/6/06

Re: Letter for Insurance appeal

Suzanne,

While I am not a CI candidate I have seen it mentioned before to get the

manufacturer of the CI that you want implanted to act on your behalf. I too have

United Health Care as a State of New York employee and I am discouraged by your

post. But the CI manufacturers, at least Cochlear and AB have experts who

advocate for their clients. The CI Center also would be a good source of expert

advice. Good luck! - Gerald

Suzanne <suzwalker@...> wrote:

Hi,

Well, we got the dreaded denial letter from United Health Care Monday stating

they would not cover my CI surgery. Their reason for the denial is our policy

don't cover CI's " except to the extent needed for repair of damages caused by

bodily injury " . My loss is progressive sensorineural hearing loss. We are going

to appeal again and I need to write another letter to go with this second

appeal. I know several of you have been through this and would appreciate

" hearing " what you put in your letters. Sometimes just the way things are worded

makes a BIG difference and I need to really stress that a CI is my only option

left to hear.

Thanks

Suzanne W

[Guest guest]

Hey Gerald, just wanted to let you know that I had normal hearing my

whole life up until November, when I was diagnosed with something

called Autoimmune Inner Ear Disease. Between the end of November and

the middle of January, I went completely deaf. Can't hear a thing.

So I can totally relate to your sudden hearing loss. And I've been a

court reporter for many years (the people that take down the

testimony of the lawyers and witnesses in court on their little steno

machine), so " hearing " was what I did on a daily basis for work.

These past few months have been hell, I must say, but I just got

approval for simultaneous bilateral CI's and will be having surgery

within a month or so. So there is hope for us! I'll let you know

how things go after activation. Good luck to you. I wish you all

the best. And if there's any questions you want to ask, please feel

free to ask away. I'll try to help in any way I can.

> Hi,

> Well, we got the dreaded denial letter from United Health Care

Monday stating they would not cover my CI surgery. Their reason for

the denial is our policy don't cover CI's " except to the extent

needed for repair of damages caused by bodily injury " . My loss is

progressive sensorineural hearing loss. We are going to appeal again

and I need to write another letter to go with this second appeal. I

know several of you have been through this and would

appreciate " hearing " what you put in your letters. Sometimes just the

way things are worded makes a BIG difference and I need to really

stress that a CI is my only option left to hear.

>

> Thanks

> Suzanne W

>

>

[Guest guest]

Gerald, rather than a sudden loss of hearing, I had sudden deafness. Here one

minute and gone the next. I did think that was the end of my life and suffered

for almost 5 years going from doc to doc and audi to audi before " cochlear

implant " was finally mentioned to me.

After doing much research, I decided that I had nothing to lose. My cochlear

implant did give me my life back again and I plan on living it to its fullest.

There definitely is great hope with this wonderful technology.

Happy Hearing!

Carol

Boca Raton, FL

N24C 3G left ear -12/11/01

N Freedom- right ear- implanted 3/01/06 activated 4/6/06

Re: Letter for Insurance appeal

Suzanne,

While I am not a CI candidate I have seen it mentioned before to get the

manufacturer of the CI that you want implanted to act on your behalf. I too have

United Health Care as a State of New York employee and I am discouraged by your

post. But the CI manufacturers, at least Cochlear and AB have experts who

advocate for their clients. The CI Center also would be a good source of expert

advice. Good luck! - Gerald

Suzanne <suzwalker@...> wrote:

Hi,

Well, we got the dreaded denial letter from United Health Care Monday stating

they would not cover my CI surgery. Their reason for the denial is our policy

don't cover CI's " except to the extent needed for repair of damages caused by

bodily injury " . My loss is progressive sensorineural hearing loss. We are going

to appeal again and I need to write another letter to go with this second

appeal. I know several of you have been through this and would appreciate

" hearing " what you put in your letters. Sometimes just the way things are worded

makes a BIG difference and I need to really stress that a CI is my only option

left to hear.

Thanks

Suzanne W

[Guest guest]

Carol. At my last audiogram the audie tested me first on two syllable words and

the only one I got was " baseball. " She did not bother with one syllable words.

A CI Implant center stresses conversational speech. How I do remains to be

seen. In the meanwhile my hearing instrument specialist (HIS) made one of the

programs on my Starkey DaVinci digital hearing aid directional mike.

It was mentioned here and elsewhere a CI brings a person from deaf to hard of

hearing. I am not totally deaf yet. I feel I have too much hearing and more to

lose than to gain with a long rehab process. So I am not going through with

the CI evaluation process yet. It is a waste of everyone time since I am not

serious about a CI now and probably will not make the effort required to adjust

to the new miracle of hearing. Meanwhile I am " listening " to new developments

in the CI and other hearing fields.

Take care - Gerald

Carol <carol@...> wrote:

Gerald, rather than a sudden loss of hearing, I had sudden deafness.

Here one minute and gone the next. I did think that was the end of my life and

suffered for almost 5 years going from doc to doc and audi to audi before

" cochlear implant " was finally mentioned to me.

After doing much research, I decided that I had nothing to lose. My cochlear

implant did give me my life back again and I plan on living it to its fullest.

There definitely is great hope with this wonderful technology.

Happy Hearing!

Carol

Boca Raton, FL

N24C 3G left ear -12/11/01

N Freedom- right ear- implanted 3/01/06 activated 4/6/06

Re: Letter for Insurance appeal

Suzanne,

While I am not a CI candidate I have seen it mentioned before to get the

manufacturer of the CI that you want implanted to act on your behalf. I too have

United Health Care as a State of New York employee and I am discouraged by your

post. But the CI manufacturers, at least Cochlear and AB have experts who

advocate for their clients. The CI Center also would be a good source of expert

advice. Good luck! - Gerald

Suzanne <suzwalker@...> wrote:

Hi,

Well, we got the dreaded denial letter from United Health Care Monday stating

they would not cover my CI surgery. Their reason for the denial is our policy

don't cover CI's " except to the extent needed for repair of damages caused by

bodily injury " . My loss is progressive sensorineural hearing loss. We are going

to appeal again and I need to write another letter to go with this second

appeal. I know several of you have been through this and would appreciate

" hearing " what you put in your letters. Sometimes just the way things are worded

makes a BIG difference and I need to really stress that a CI is my only option

left to hear.

Thanks

Suzanne W

[Guest guest]

Gerald,

I don't understand. If you only got one 2-syllable word, wouldn't that send

you in the direction of CI candidacy?

[Guest guest]

,

Within my limitations I am understanding conversational speech in normal

environment. In very noisy environments speech discrimination is troublesome. -

Gerald

<wdywms@...> wrote:

Gerald,

I don't understand. If you only got one 2-syllable word, wouldn't that send

you in the direction of CI candidacy?

---------------------------------

Need a vacation? Get great deals to amazing places on Travel.

[Guest guest]

Gerald wrote:

> Within my limitations I am understanding conversational speech in

normal > environment. In very noisy environments speech

discrimination is > troublesome.

Up until about a year before I got my implant I was square dancing

with the aid of a modified FM walkie talkie sending voice only and

wearing headphones. If the caller started just yakking I couldn't

understand much of anything he/she said but I managed to hear the

calls because the repertoire was limited and I'm sure I made a lot of

" best guesses " along with seeing what others were doing.

Testing with single or two syllable words is much more difficult. No

other senses to help.

Too old now to take up square dancing again <g>.

Virg

[Guest guest]

What you say is very interesting Gerald. I actually never considered myself

deaf because I heard sound with strong HAs. However, I missed more words than I

heard. In fact, until I was tested in the notorious booth, even I didn't

realize how little I heard because I had been lipreading without realizing it.

Although in the booth my word comprehension was zero, it wasn't until I received

my CI that I realized how deaf I really was. As a late deafened adult, one

usually catches on very quickly. I had virtually no rehab at all and I believe

that most late deafened adults rarely do any formal rehab. When I first got my

CI, at the beginning, when I heard something unfamiliar, I would ask what it

was. Once I was told what the sound was, my brain kicked in and remembered what

it was so next time I heard it, I knew right away.

Perhaps some people may think they are hard of hearing when wearing a CI. I

certainly do not, nor do most people I know who have Cochlear's Nucleus

implants. Yes, when I take off my processors, I am completely deaf but with

them on, I pretty much hear and understand everything. In fact, many times in

very noisy situations, I hear better than hearing people do because I have the

technology to tune out what I do not want to hear whereas hearing people can't.

It is truly amazing.

When you are ready to take the plunge, I think you will wonder why you waited so

long. Good luck to you Gerald.

Happy Hearing!

Carol

Boca Raton, FL

N24C 3G left ear -12/11/01

N Freedom- right ear- implanted 3/01/06 activated 4/6/06

Re: Letter for Insurance appeal

Suzanne,

While I am not a CI candidate I have seen it mentioned before to get the

manufacturer of the CI that you want implanted to act on your behalf. I too have

United Health Care as a State of New York employee and I am discouraged by your

post. But the CI manufacturers, at least Cochlear and AB have experts who

advocate for their clients. The CI Center also would be a good source of expert

advice. Good luck! - Gerald

Suzanne <suzwalker@...> wrote:

Hi,

Well, we got the dreaded denial letter from United Health Care Monday stating

they would not cover my CI surgery. Their reason for the denial is our policy

don't cover CI's " except to the extent needed for repair of damages caused by

bodily injury " . My loss is progressive sensorineural hearing loss. We are going

to appeal again and I need to write another letter to go with this second

appeal. I know several of you have been through this and would appreciate

" hearing " what you put in your letters. Sometimes just the way things are worded

makes a BIG difference and I need to really stress that a CI is my only option

left to hear.

Thanks

Suzanne W