The average person waits 8.9 years between knowing they have hearing loss and doing anything about it. Nearly nine years of asking people to repeat themselves, turning the television up, and missing the sentence that mattered at the dinner table. The reason, in almost every survey, is the same. The price.
A prescription hearing aid in this country has averaged $4,700 a pair. Medicare does not cover hearing aids. Most private insurance does not either. For a generation on a fixed income, that math ended the conversation.
In October 2022, the FDA opened a new category: over-the-counter hearing aids. OTC hearing aids are devices you can buy at a pharmacy counter without a prescription, for mild to moderate hearing loss. They cost $200 to $800. The rule eliminated the audiologist as the gatekeeper and the price as the barrier in one move.
What it cost before
$4,700 average for a prescription pair. Audiologist fitting required. Most insurance did not cover it. The cost alone kept millions from treating their hearing loss.
What it costs now
Under $300 for an OTC device at the pharmacy or online. No prescription. No fitting appointment. Walk in, walk out, hear better on the drive home.
The market has responded. The global hearing aids market hit $7.8 billion this year. The OTC segment alone crossed a billion. Sony launched a device with WS Audiology. Apple cleared its AirPods Pro as an FDA-approved hearing aid. The consumer electronics companies saw the same number the pharmacy chains did: 28.8 million potential customers who are not being served.
And the adoption rate is climbing. MarkeTrak 2025 measured it at 39 percent, up from 30 percent a decade ago. The OTC rule added about four percentage points on its own. That still leaves more than 17 million Americans who need a device and do not have one. Every year the cohort ages, more of them cross the line.
Where the hearing aid sits on the spending schedule.
The catch is vanity. The 8.9-year delay is not entirely about money. It is also about admitting, out loud, that the hearing is going. The OTC rule solved the price. It did not solve the pride. The gap between need and use is still wider than 60 percent. The real growth sits in the year the person finally walks in.
The arithmetic
Adults who could benefit from hearing aids (28.8 million) from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), cited in Audien Hearing’s 2026 Affordability Report. Adoption rate (39.1%, up from 30.2% in 2015) from MarkeTrak 2025. The one-in-four pursuit rate and 8.9-year average delay from the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology (JAAA), May 2025. OTC rule effective October 2022 from the U.S. FDA. Average prescription cost ($4,700 per pair) from JAMA Network Open and MarkeTrak. OTC price range ($200 to $800) from FDA and Audien. Global hearing aids market ($7.8 billion, 2026) from Persistence Market Research. OTC segment ($1.05 billion, 2026) from Research Nester. Apple AirPods Pro FDA hearing-aid clearance, September 2024. Sony/WS Audiology OTC device launch, August 2024. The OTC four-percentage-point adoption lift from MarkeTrak 2025 (PMC, June 2025).
Somewhere a man my age is turning the television up again. His wife has mentioned it twice. He will wait another year, maybe two. Then he will walk into a pharmacy and pay $250 for a device that used to cost ten times as much. The schedule is already printed. The only question is when he admits it.
Andrew
Boomers Trade is written by someone getting older right alongside you, and watching who profits from it.
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