The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) have recently published details on its decision to expand coverage for cochlear implants under Medicare. This provides a significant improvement in access to care for older adults who are Medicare beneficiaries allowing individuals with hearing test scores between >40% and ≤60% to qualify for cochlear implantation. 

Specifically, CI is an appropriate treatment of bilateral pre- or post-linguistic, sensorineural, moderate-to-profound hearing loss in individuals who demonstrate limited benefit from amplification defined by test scores of less than or equal to 60% correct in the best-aided listening condition on recorded tests of open-set sentence cognition. Patients must meet other criteria defined by CMS as well. The final decision memorandum for the reconsideration of Cochlear Implantation was published here:  https://www.cms.gov/medicare-coverage-database/view/ncacal-decision-memo.aspx?proposed=N&ncaid=306

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