Most Americans are indignant about high prescription drug prices. But for women living in poverty, life-saving medicines are often completely out of reach. Many poor women skip getting needed care because of the high cost, putting themselves and their families at risk. On the latest episode of The Dose, host Shanoor Seervai sits down with two women who have found innovative ways to tackle this problem. Jessica Grossman, who works for the nonprofit pharmaceutical company Medicines360, sells medicines at a lower price so that all women can get the treatment they need. Reforming the complex U.S. patent system, one of the root causes of high drug prices, is how Priti Krishtel, with the Initiative for Medicines, Access and Knowledge (I-MAK), is trying to remove barriers to treatment. Have you or someone you know gone without a medicine because it’s too expensive? Send us an email on [email protected].

Several bills introduced in Congress over the past year seek to make health care more accessible to all Americans while also tamping down growing health care costs. In particular, “Medicare for All” proposals have garnered a lot of recent attention.

How would these proposals change the way Americans get health care? On this episode of The Dose, Shanoor Seervai sits down with the Commonwealth Fund’s Sara Collins to break down the different options policymakers are weighing as they try to reform our health care system.

Truck drivers spend most of their day sitting, which puts them at a high risk of obesity, heart disease, high blood pressure, among other health problems. 

But a visionary doctor who cares for union truck drivers in Tulsa, Oaklahoma came up with a plan to integrate exercise into their daily routine. When they stop to check the tires, for example, they can walk around the truck six times instead of just once.

On this episode of The Dose, Shanoor Seervai interviews Mark Blum of America’s Agenda, an alliance of labor unions, employers, health care providers and government leaders, about how innovative unions are changing the way care is delivered.

Put yourself in the shoes of a person diagnosed with diabetes. You have to cope with a new medical reality. To make matters worse, your doctor keeps saying, “stop eating this” and “you can’t eat that.”

What if instead you went to a health center where a team of caregivers – including a nutritionist – asked what your favorite food is, and found a way for you to eat a healthier version?

The team at Stephen and Sandra Sheller 11th Street Family Health Services in North Philadelphia take this approach. In the latest episode of The Dose, Shanoor Seervai speaks to 11th Street’s executive director Roberta Waite, and the Commonwealth Fund’s Sarah Klein, about what makes the health center extraordinary.

From offering a wide range of creative arts therapies, like yoga and dance, to consulting patients about everything (including the color of the walls), 11th Street aims to be a place where people go to be healthy, not just when they’re sick.

What is it like for people living in poverty to take the afternoon off to go see a doctor?

Not only do they forgo badly needed wages, but often they must also find someone to watch their children and then scramble to catch a ride or come up with bus fare – only to spend five minutes with the doctor and leave with a prescription that doesn’t address their most pressing concerns.

The Commonwealth Fund’s Shanoor Seervai and Corinne Lewis listened to stories like this from more than 100 low-income patients and the primary care providers who serve them.

On this episode of The Dose, they discuss what they learned about the time constraints and financial barriers that can make it an ordeal for people living in poverty to seek even the most routine health care.

If you have a heart attack, chances are you won’t feel up to asking the emergency room doctor, “Are you in my network?”

What’s more, if you’re lucky enough to recover, there’s the chance that you’ll be stuck with a bill for health services that you thought your insurance would cover.

On this episode of The Dose, host Shanoor Seervai talks to Kevin Lucia and Jack Hoadley of Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute about the ubiquitous problem of surprise medical bills. Why do so many people get bills they don’t expect? And what are our leaders doing about it?

When a homeless person gets discharged from hospital, he needs a safe place to recover. When a poor patient faces a high co-pay for a medicine she needs, she is often too embarrassed to tell her doctor – instead, she may not fill the prescription.

Doctors don’t typically try to solve these social problems, but some want to do better at understanding patients’ lived experiences. In the latest episode of The Dose, Ishani Ganguli and Janine Knudsen, both primary care providers at innovative clinics, talk to Shanoor Seervai about how they are trying to treat a patient as a whole person, rather than focusing on a single medical condition. They discuss the successes and challenges of caring for patients in their daily practice in light of the findings of a recent survey of people living with serious illness in the United States.

If you have a cold or cough, an antibiotic may not be the cure. If you have a minor injury from playing hockey, a CT scan of the head may not be necessary. Then why do so many doctors prescribe these, and what can be done to stop it?

On this episode of The Dose, Shanoor interviews Wendy Levinson, M.D. and Karen Born, who run the Choosing Wisely Canada campaign. Based on the philosophy, ‘more is not always better,’ Choosing Wisely is a campaign to help clinicians and patients engage in a dialogue to avoid unnecessary medical tests, treatments, and procedures.

What happens when a bus company teams up with a senior center offering health promotion classes? Older people who want to attend are able arrive on time.

On this episode of The Dose, host Shanoor Seervai talks to Amanda Brewster, a health policy professor at the University of California, Berkeley, about how health care organizations can work with groups providing social services to get older people the care they need.

While most conversations about health care focus on medical issues, Brewster’s work is part of a growing body of research showing that social factors – like food, housing, and transport – can have a big impact on our health.

The U.S. health care system frequently overlooks the needs of Americans with disabilities. Medical offices are often inaccessible to people in wheelchairs, for example, and mammography machines often aren’t equipped with simple modifications that could enable more women to get screened.

Such inaccessibility may be contributing to health problems for people with disabilities: they receive less preventive care than people without disabilities, have higher rates of chronic conditions, and are far more likely to be admitted to the hospital.

On this week’s episode of The Dose, host Shanoor Seervai talks to Martha Hostetter and Sarah Klein, who recently studied several health plans and clinics that have created custom models, helping people with disabilities live with dignity and independence.