Comparing cost of medication with and without insurance for students
How do the homeless get healthcare treatment?
Rising cost of pharmaceuticals on the market
Medical bills are the biggest cause of US bankruptcy (according to CNBC)
Nutritional health among the poor
The cost of becoming a doctor
Nurses are underpaid and overworked, according to survey
Depression treatment depends on socioeconomic class and race (according to study)
Seeking help for opioid abuse, what are the societal costs?
Getting off your parents’ healthcare plan is a difficult and complicated process, that leaves some, uninsured.
Looking at a lack of sleep and a lack of pay: the profile of a nurse
Trend story: looking at doctors that are forced to take on more patients and spend less time with each of them. With all the costs of healthcare, all the tests that doctors do to prevent patients from potentially suing them, and the money that sometimes sinking hospitals have to make to stay afloat, doctors are force to take on more patients than they’d like. Oftentimes, one will wait much longer than the five minute interaction they will later have with their physician. It hasn’t always been this way. Doctors used to make home visits and take their time explaining the situation to their patients. Why is this suddenly happening? Talk to doctors at the hospital in Athens.
Trend story: Looking at the cost of dying and why some patients are wanting to choose assisted suicide. (or to stop treatment) The debate about assisted suicide has come up a couple times. Most recently, a woman with terminal cancer went viral after making a video about how she had to cross state lines to find a way to die on her own terms. Dr. Kevorkian has been jailed for his very issue. And some European countries have now made it legal to choose a comfortable death over treatment. Talk to med students about medical ethics.
*Look Back: The rise of antibiotic soap and why the FDA decided to ban it. Most recently, the FDA banned the production of antibiotic soap. Antibiotic soap, advertising to kill germs and prevent diseases, meant to do good when it first came out. Unfortunately, over usage of antibiotic products created superbugs or antibiotic resistant bacteria that doctors had a hard time treating. Talk to some med students and pharmacists about this.
Localizer: Obamacare, is it better or worse for students at UGA?
*Doctors, with little time on their hands, sometimes make careless but life threatening mistakes when prescribing medications. Often times the pharmacist is left to catch the mistake and prevent a disaster. Profile of a local pharmacist.
*Some insurances don’t cover mental health costs. Why? CAPS has an overwhelming number of students needing help. They are incredibly selective about insurance and cant take long term treatment. Insurance tries to wrap up treatment as quickly as possible. Look at national data and interview CAPS.
medical economics problem: Doctors often work against the benefit of society by acting rationally in their own self interest. They over test patients and end up spending a lot more money than necessary in order to lessen the chances of getting sued.
*As consumers, we can get the price of almost everything we consume, except medical care. Why don’t doctors inform patients of how much treatment can cost? Being charged after the fact.
*Freakenomics- Does more sleep result in higher pay? Look at data and do some research/interview of your own. Compare with smoker’s ads that say that smokers make on average less than nonsmokers.
