Estimating the United States Patient Population Size Meeting Audiologic Candidacy for Cochlear Implantation

This study aimed to estimate the size of the United States candidacy pool meeting expanded Center for Medicare Services criteria for cochlear implantation.

Retrospective cross-sectional.

Tertiary care center.

Preimplantation audiometric data from 486 patients seen at a single academic medical center were collected retrospectively and used to generate a predictive model of AzBio score based on audiometric pure tone thresholds. This model was then used to estimate nationally representative cochlear implantation (CI)-candidacy using pure tone averages included in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. Qualitative and quantitative analyses were performed.

We find that the estimated prevalence of CI candidacy in individuals 65 years of age or older is expected to more than double with a change in the CI candidacy criteria from ≤40% to ≤60% (from 1.42%, 95% confidence interval [1.33, 1.63] to 3.73% [2.71, 6.56]) on speech testing. We also found the greatest absolute increase in candidacy in the 80+ age group, increasing from 4.14% [3.72, 5.1] of the population meeting the ≤40% criteria to 12.12% [9.19, 18.35] meeting the ≤60% criteria.

The United States population size meeting expanded CMS audiologic criteria for cochlear implantation is estimated to be 2.5 million adults and 2.1 million age 65 or older. Changing the CI candidacy criteria from ≤40% to ≤60% on CI testing has the greatest effect on the eligible patient population in the >65-year-old age group. The determination of utilization rates in newly eligible patients will require further study.