1 min read

Season 5, Episode 198

Discussing hearing healthcare for American Workers

Birdsong Gray

 

Guest Name:


Dr. Michael MacDonald

Guest Website:


Birdsong Hearing Benefits 

Guest Social Media:


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Supportive Documents:


Dr. Michael MacDonald, Director of Audiology for Birdsong Hearing Benefits, joined the America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss the importance of hearing healthcare for working Americans, signs of hearing loss and how employers and health plans can help.

Birdsong is a hearing benefits manager that provides solutions for the most underutilized supplemental benefit: hearing. MacDonald said Birdsong helps employees navigate hearing care through a four-step process. He discussed the company’s history and how they came up with their four-step process. 

According to MacDonald, hearing loss impacts a person’s overall health. He discussed some of the medical conditions, both physical and mental, that can be present with hearing loss. He also discussed his struggles with hearing loss after his time in the military and how it’s impacted him. Using that experience, MacDonald knows first-hand how hearing loss could affect trades members and potentially prevent them from working.

Construction trades, heavy machinery, and other trades with high noise levels are at the most risk for hearing loss. MacDonald discussed some of the preventative measures a worker can take to try to prevent hearing loss. Hearing loss can be subtle, and he discussed some changes that a worker might notice and what someone can do to get assistance. MacDonald explained what a health plan or Member Assistance Plan coordinator could do to protect members and provide them with high-level hearing care.

Listen to Dr. MacDonald in the episode above to learn more about hearing loss and prevention.


America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.

America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, Alliance for American Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes-IBT, Boyd Watterson, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, Mechanical Insulators Labor Management Cooperative Trust, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, Melwood, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of North America, The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.

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