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Old Lyme Road resident Kerry Sullivan is trying to get the state to require health insurers to pay for hearing aids.
“I’ve had a hearing loss since childhood from no known cause,” she says. “As a child, I would lip read and sit at the front of the classroom, and copy friends notes.
“But as an adult, work meetings and speaker phones were a problem and I started to fall apart,” she continues. “I had to get past my denial (which is common among the hearing disabled) and finally got hearing aids when I was in my 20s. I still felt like it was a stigma to wear them. But not anymore.”
Sullivan worked in the competitive financial services industry and says she spent a lot of nights reading to learn more about her job issues.
In 2016, she attended the Hearing Loss Association of America HLAA conference in St. Lake City. She went with her mother, who suffered a hearing loss after getting a laser treatment for an acoustic neuroma.
“At the conference I saw people I respected who were sharp, both visually and professionally — they didn’t let their disability interfere with their lives,” she says. “There was a lot of ‘knowledge transfer,’ more than I got from my doctor or the audiologist because they don’t have a hearing loss.
“A conference attendee suggested I join the Boston chapter and I ended up getting the short straw,” she jokes, which is how she got elected president.
“Zoom totally changed my world,” Sullivan adds, “especially once they added captions.”
Fundraising is a big part of her “job,” she adds.
“Last year, on Giving Tuesday, we got $100. Our expenses aren’t large unless we have to get a human ‘captioner’ for our meetings, the term we use for someone who adds captions in real time,” Sullivan says. “There’s a shortage of them and we pay $400 for them to do the captions. We also occasionally hire an American Sign Language translator.
“But in 2024, we did a 5K ‘Walk4Hearing’ in Boston and raised $2,400,” Sullivan adds. “We fund scholarships so people can attend the HLAA conference. This year the walk will be on Oct. 5.”
Kerry Sullivan demonstrates an app. WINCHESTER NEWS STAFF VIDEO/JOYCE WESTNER
As for the state legislation, Sullivan supports House Bill H3946. When she testified at a September hearing, she pointed out that about 13% of Americans have some kind of hearing loss, and more than half of them are working adults or children. But only about 30% of them wear hearing aids, “with cost being the largest barrier.
“Five states mandate private insurance coverage for adults, including Connecticut, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, so why not Massachusetts?” she asked the committee.
And, she points out, the cost in Massachusetts would be about $60k each year.
During the interview, Sullivan demonstrates her smartphone apps, which help folks with hearing loss, and says she’d be happy to help people learn to use them. Her email address is on the HLAA local chapter webpage.
