Helping people find assistance with health care and prescription costs

The Costs of Coronavirus – Part 4

Since our last update on the costs associated with COVID-19 in January, the United States has begun to make meaningful progress in distributing vaccines, vaccination rates, and slowing the spread of the coronavirus within its borders. There are now three FDA-approved vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes COVID-19, including one approved for emergency use among children as young as 12 years old.   Over 1,000-4,000 Americans died from COVID-19 every day in the final months of the Trump administration. Former President Trump refused to meaningfully address the ongoing pandemic in their final weeks in office, even going so far […]

Resources for Women’s Health Week

This past Mother’s Day launched the 22st annual National Women’s Health Week. Led by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office on Women’s Health, the goal is to empower women to make their health a priority and raise awareness of the steps one can take to improve their health.   The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends many common measures such as proper health screenings, staying physically active, eating healthy, and promoting other healthy behaviors. Healthy behaviors include getting enough sleep, being tobacco-free, washing your hands, not texting while driving, and wearing a seatbelt, a […]

Mental Health Awareness Saves Lives

Mental health is defined by the World Health Organization as “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes their own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to his or her community.” Everyone’s well-being can be tested at times, their abilities to cope challenged, times when being productive can feel impossible. Mental health is equally important to maintain as our physical health, though often goes untreated to a degree than can manifest as a mental illness. Mental illness can range from anxiety to mood disorders […]

Be Aware – May’s Awareness Months

Who decides what months/weeks/days are health awareness dates? It’s often nonprofit or public health organizations, but sometimes states or the federal government can name an observance period. The month of May is observed as over a dozen awareness months, overlapping awareness weeks, and several awareness days. Several of our own partners are observing awareness months. ALS Awareness Month May was named ALS Awareness Month in the United States by Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush in 1992. Also known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease affecting the function of […]

Beware of Dr. Google (Part 2)

(This is Part 2 of a 2-part series. You can find part 1 here.)   Almost everyone is susceptible to self-diagnosis from well-meaning searches, but some people are more prone than others. When I was in medical school 39 years ago, before the internet took off, we called it Medical Student Disease. It usually involved one or more of us, depending on what ordinary symptoms we had that day, wondering if we had the disease we were studying. It usually subsided when we got into enough detail about these diseases to realize we didn’t have them. I’m sure it’s a […]

About Us

Welcome to the NeedyMeds Voice! We look forward to presenting you with timely, provocative pieces on healthcare reform, patient advocacy, medication and healthcare access, and other health-related news. Our goals are to educate, enlighten, and elucidate; together, we will try to make sense of the myriad and ongoing healthcare-related changes in the U.S. today.