Understanding Tinnitus Clinical Care in the Veterans Health Administration and Department of Defense: Overview of Survey Results.

The survey only reached providers who chose to respond, so it may reflect people already interested in tinnitus care. The authors could not count all eligible providers or confirm that mailing lists were complete, so the results cannot be generalized to all VHA and DOD clinicians. Some specialties had very few respondents, especially DOD ENT, DOD mental health, and hearing conservation technicians. Branching and skip logic meant that individual questions had lower response counts than the total sample. Multiple respondents from the same health care system were allowed, so one system could be overrepresented. A clinic-level no does not prove that tinnitus services were unavailable elsewhere in the same health system.

The authors declared no competing financial or nonfinancial interests. No funding source is reported in the article text.

Do not read these percentages as national coverage or proof that tinnitus care is adequate. The survey reached only providers who chose to answer, was sent through specialty mailing lists that may have been incomplete, and did not know the total number of eligible providers.