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Most family doctors don't do the math to figure out whether their patients are obese. It's one reason among many that doctors on the front lines are unlikely to be the solution for country's weight problem.

Transporting reams of athletes' medical information has become a major burden for the U.S. Olympic Committee. So the committee has decided to transition from paper to electronic records to track the complex medical care of Olympians.

More than 40 states have systems in place to monitor prescription drugs, but budget strains and unwieldy databases have hindered their use by doctors and pharmacists to curb drug abuse.

Though they may be well-meaning, not to mention more affordable than trained interpreters, relying on accidental interpreters, such as family members, during medical treatment isn't the best idea, research has found.

The prefrontal cortex, the brain's executive control center, develops more slowly than the limbic system, which controls arousal and reward. The mismatch makes it harder for teens to maintain concentration behind the wheel.

Verifying that a patient has paid for coverage under the Affordable Care Act can take hours. But if doctors' offices don't check, they can get stuck with the bill.

Health plans of all kinds typically cover rehabilitative services, such as physical therapy to help people after an accident or illness. But before the Affordable Care Act passed, coverage of similar services to help people learn or maintain functional skills, rather than regain them, was often excluded.

Because North Carolina didn't expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, many low-income people who could otherwise benefit from the law don't. But there are often ways to bump up their incomes just enough to help them qualify for subsidized coverage.

Even for people who get insurance that complies with the Affordable Care Act, there are potential trouble spots. Those include expensive prescription drugs, specialist care and services such as physical therapy that typically require a course of treatment over weeks or months.

Hospitals in Maryland would be financially rewarded for keeping people healthy and out of the hospital. The arrangement, once unimaginable, could serve as a model for containing hospital costs elsewhere in the country.