Three years ago I went to a warehouse club store in order to purchase hearing aids. I went because it was common knowledge that the hearing aids were very attractively priced there. My expectation was that I would save money as compared with buying them at an audiologist office. And for many people this would be exactly true.
However, I found out that my insurance wouldn’t work at the warehouse club. The insurance worked only at a certain audiology chain, where the insurance company arranged special pricing through their plan. So that’s where I went. Even though the big box store had some amazingly affordable prices, the cost after insurance was significantly less at the audiologist.
Three years have passed, and I now wanted to upgrade my hearing aids. I went back to the audiology chain because that’s cheaper given my insurance, right? No, I found out that my insurance no longer had their special pricing with the audiology chain. The insurance would apply, but the price after insurance was going to be literally 10 times what I paid 3 years ago.
I did some more investigation, and my insurance would now work at the warehouse club. Even if the insurance hadn’t worked at the warehouse club, it still would have been less expensive than the audiology price after insurance was applied.
The moral of the story: Don’t depend on a mantra of what is cheaper. Don’t even depend on what worked 3 years ago. Believe the math, not the mantra.