21 February 2018 — 1716 mst

Why do medical offices hate email?

This is personal. I’m steamed, and I hope the steam scalds the Luddites who are making my life hell.

As my family, friends, and many readers, know, I’m hard of hearing. With amplification — a hearing aid — I can function almost normally. Without a hearing aid, a conversation is a shouting match that must be conducted face-to-face.

My hearing aid died last fall. Replacing it has become an exasperating, blood pressure increasing, experience that may induce fatal apoplexy. The technology is overpriced and controlled by a cartel of audiologists. And often one’s health insurance doesn’t pay for a hearing aid, or is so stingy that one can’t afford the copay.

Nevertheless, this week I thought I’d found a way to obtain a hearing aid without having to rob a bank and auction off my home. The next step: getting an appointment with an audiologist.

Unfortunately, I have to do that in person. The audiologists’ office does not have an email address for patients, or prospective patients. And given how hard of hearing I am, making a telephone call to the office is not an option.

This is crazy. If I could communicate with the audiologist’s office by telephone, I wouldn’t need a hearing aid. These people don’t want to help the hard of hearing. They just want to sell little amplifiers at extortionist prices, and to condemn everyone to communicating by the goddamned telephone. No wonder our country does not have the greatest health care system on earth.