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We hope you enjoyed your time at the Gaylord Texan for AuDacity 2022, and will take home actionable insights on improving your business practices and patient services.

Click here to view photos from AuDacity 2022! More photos will be added over the coming weeks.

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) distributed a letter to state officials providing important clarifications about the Final Rule on OTC Hearing Aids.

In part, the letter states, “We have received questions about some implications of these actions, including who may prescribe hearing aids and whether medical evaluations are necessary to obtain non-OTC hearing aids, which will be defined as prescription hearing aids under the rule. We clarify below that the final rule:

ADA applauds the decision by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to reconsider the national coverage determination established at section 50.3 of the Medicare National Coverage Determinations manual. CMS is expanding coverage by broadening the patient criteria and removing the requirement that for individuals with hearing test scores of > 40 % and ≤ 60 %, cochlear implantation may be covered only when the provider is participating in and patients are enrolled in either an FDA-approved category B IDE clinical trial, a trial under the CMS Clinical Trial Policy, or a prospective, controlled comparative trial approved by CMS.

The Craig W. Johnson Audiology Advocate Award is presented annually to an individual who has made significant contributions to the profession of audiology through federal and/or state advocacy.

The Joel Wernick Award is presented in recognition of an outstanding educational contribution within the profession of audiology or hearing science. Eligibility for the Joel Wernick Award is open to all individuals and institutions/organizations.

CareCredit, a leading provider of promotional financing, is officially launching Office Manager/Administrator Appreciation Month on October 1, 2022.

Providers, teams and especially office managers and administrators are invited to celebrate and recognize everything these #AwesomeOMAs do for their teams, patients and practices.

Nick will be presenting "The Superpower of Managing Complexity in healthcare, in a Time of 'Chaotic Innovation'", Thursday, October 20, 2022 at 3:40 PM

Nick Webb is a number one best-selling author and is one of the most popular Innovation, Healthcare, Future-trends, and Customer Experience Speakers in the world. Nick is the CEO of LeaderLogic, LLC a Management Consulting Firm that provides consulting services to the top brands in the world. Nick works shoulder-to-shoulder with boards of directors of multibillion-dollar companies to assist them in building future-ready organizations.

On Thursday, September 1, 2022, at 7:00 p.m. Eastern, ADA will host a Town Hall Member Meeting to break down the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Final Rule Establishing OTC Hearing Aids (Final Rule), including provisions related to the establishment of a new category of prescription hearing aids. Implications of the Final Rule on state laws related to audiology licensure and hearing aid sales will be discussed, as will practical recommendations for audiologists and audiology practices.

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released its long-awaited Final Over-the-Counter (OTC) Hearing Aid Rule (Final Rule) nearly five years after the Over-the-Counter (OTC) Hearing Aid Act was signed into law.

The Academy of Doctors of Audiology (ADA), a longstanding proponent of OTC hearing aids, commends the FDA for including provisions in the Final Rule that provide reasonable assurance of safety and efficacy for adult consumers with perceived mild-to-moderate hearing loss, and that are consistent with Congress’ directive.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Medicare Proposed Physician Fee Schedule (Proposed Rule) includes a proposal to allow Medicare Part B beneficiaries limited direct access to audiologists for hearing assessment services by allowing audiologists to furnish certain diagnostic tests without a physician order.

CMS states: “We are proposing to allow beneficiaries to have direct access, when appropriate, to an audiologist without a physician referral by creating a new HCPCS code (GAUDX) for audiologists to use when billing for audiology services they already provide that are defined by other code(s).