Surgery Process

Surgery Process

1. Once the decision is made to have cochlear implant surgery, we request pre-authorization for the surgery from the candidate's insurance company. Most commercial insurance companies, as well as Medicare and T19, cover cochlear implants.
    
2. Surgery is scheduled after insurance approval is received. 
    
3. Surgery is usually an outpatient procedure and involves an overnight hospital stay. 
    
4. Surgery takes about 2-5 hours. In addition to testing the device itself to confirm each patient has a functioning unit, electrophysiologic testing is done to begin to evaluate each person's responsiveness to stimulation via the cochlear implant. This information can be very useful in the device fitting process and monitoring post-implant device function. 
    
5. A post-operative check is scheduled soon after surgery.