MEDIA RELEASE

Thursday 26 November 2009

• Hearing Service Providers (clinics contracted to ACC)
• Hearing Instrument Manufacturers and Distributors Association (HIMADA)
• New Zealand Audiological Society

False Savings From Cuts To ACC Coverage For Hearing Damage

Short-sighted spending cuts to ACC cover for hearing damage will end up costing New Zealanders millions of dollars more in increased costs to the health system, lost productivity and damage to the lives of the elderly.

The hearing industry is opposing the estimated $3-$4 million changes in the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation and Compensation Amendment Bill that cut people with less than six percent noise-induced hearing loss out from any ACC cover. The industry is instead advocating alternative cost saving measures that don’t directly hit those with noise induced hearing damage.

“For the first time ever a rigid, numeric threshold of less than six percent hearing loss before being eligible for ACC is being proposed in the new ACC bill,” says Graeme Dodd, spokesperson for the New Zealand Hearing Industry. “ACC has admitted that the six percent hearing threshold has no clinical or rehabilitation underpinning and was selected as a pure cost cutting exercise.

“These are false savings. Cutting these people with hearing damage out of rehabilitation for their permanent injury creates significant costs elsewhere.”

The Ministry of Health is anticipating extra costs of $3 million in the first year, rising to $5 million in out years if the six percent hearing threshold and changes in cover related to the percentage of age-related hearing loss as proposed by ACC are enacted.

“Untreated hearing damage has an economic cost including lost productivity,” says Graeme Dodd. “It impacts on any work that requires communication in circumstances where there is background noise – everything from teaching, to the legal profession to customs work.”

The proposed law changes will also harm people aged 60 or over in particular, who have had their hearing damaged through no fault of their own after working in noisy and unsafe workplaces in the past.

The estimated cost of providing cover to people with less than six percent hearing loss is short term, as a result of an aging population who worked in unsafe workplaces in the past. There is more awareness of the dangers of noise in the workplace and the number of claimants with work-related hearing loss is predicted to decline in the future.

“There are other ways of finding savings from the costs of hearing loss experienced by ACC. The industry has been working collaboratively with ACC to address cost issues, saving it $10 million in the past 18 months in hearing aid costs alone. The impact on the long term Fund liability is savings of $150-$160 million,” says Mr Dodd.

“The industry believes it can work with ACC to address the cost pressures without hurting people with noise-induced hearing loss as currently planned.
“The Government can avoid a situation where, through no fault of their own, those suffering from hearing loss as a result of working in an unsafe work place will be denied ACC cover, and those who already have cover for their hearing loss are denied it in the future. “

ENDS