If you struggle with mild to moderate hearing loss, you can now buy less expensive, over-the-counter hearing aids without a doctor's exam or prescription. A new Food and Drug Administration rule allows retail sales of hearing aids beginning Monday for people with mild to moderate hearing loss.

Starting today, hearings aids are now on store shelves across the country—for thousands of dollars less than they previously cost. Specifically, today, under a final rule issued by the FDA, adults with mild-to-moderate hearing loss can buy hearing aids at a store or online without a prescription, exam, or audiologist fitting.

The agency proposed a rule to establish a new category of over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids. When finalized, the rule would allow hearing aids within this category to be sold directly to consumers in stores or online without a medical exam or a fitting by an audiologist.

In 2017, a law was passed requiring the FDA to come up with guidelines for supplying hearing aids directly to the consumer without needing a prescription or medical fitting. The law would only apply to air conduction (as opposed to bone conduction) hearing aids, the most common type of hearing aid. That guidance was officially released in 2018.