Mod Review

Healthcare Services

The Doctor Is In With These Health Mods

It’s the start of the new year and the start of the “new year, new me” season. In The Sims 4 you can make new years resolutions like losing weight or improving a skill but The Sims 4 doesn’t really have a mental or physical health system that actually impacts your Sims lives. Lucky for me Bailey Cheshire stumbled across the Healthcare Redux mod and then to my great surprise, I discovered the rest of adeepindigo’s mods. https://adeepindigo.tumblr.com/ I highly recommend you download all of them.

When I tell you I’ve been having fun with this mod, it’s a big understatement. This mod blew my socks off because when you read about it, it doesn’t sound like much. I thought it was going to be similar to SimRealist’s Private Practice but just a rabbit hole. Not even close folks. I’ve been playing with this mod for almost two week, 5-11 hours a day and I still haven’t seen the entirety of it. Here are the features this mod offers as copied from adeepindigo’s Patreon page:

“New Deadly Diseases: Malaria and Tuberculosis.****Fair warning: these diseases can cause a new death Death by Disease - if not treated or immunised against. Go see the doctor! Please note Malaria has no vaccine. Taking the Malaria pills or using the Elixir are your only options to fight the disease.***

New Infectious Viral and Bacterial Diseases: Bacterial Sinusitis, Bronchitis (only as cold complication), Cold, Ear Infection (Toddlers only), Gastroenteritis/Stomach Flu, Meningitis, Tonsillitis. *Note: Getting immunised for Meningitis while sick does not always remove the illness, but it should not happen again! Antibiotics will significantly increase the rate at which the illness goes away, but will not get rid of it completely.

New Chronic Conditions: Anaemia, Anxiety, Asthma, Arthritis (Elders), Eczema, Insomnia, Migraines, Seasonal Affective Disorder

New Allergies: Bees, Pet Dander, General/Seasonal

New Injuries: Random Childhood Injuries, Sports Injuries. I edited the sprained ankle for CL to act more like the ones from SE. Currently you don't need to go to the doctor to treat these injuries, but there's a chance they can be serious and either require a cast or surgery and those require a doctor's appointment.

Surgery-Required Complications: Appendicitis (Random), Tonsillectomy (as a complication of severe Tonsillitis), Serious Injuries Medications and Supplements include:

Pregnancy Related Healthcare: Prenatal Visits, Pregnancy-Related Complication/ Conditions (Preeclampsia, Pregnancy Related Anaemia, and Gestational Diabetes), and Prenatal Vitamins to help with fetal development (and unrealistically reduces the chance of complications). Your sim, if they have a pregnancy complication, have increased risk of labour induction and/or c-section. All new parent sims have the chance to experience the baby blues which in some cases can lead to postpartum depression.

Vitamins: Toddler, Children, Teen, and Adult Vitamins to help supplement lifestyles and keep sickness at bay. Prenatal vitamins will help with fetal development (the mother will get positive moodlets) and again unrealistically reduce the chance of complications.

Treatments: Each injury, disease, or condition has new treatments available to either treat, prevent, or cure these ailments. You can, depending on the severity of the illness/condition/injury, receive these treatments either over the counter or via prescriptions given by the doctor from the online pharmacy.

Cough Syrup for Coughs and Sore Throat, Pain Relievers for Children and Toddlers as well as Teens and up, Aspirin (mostly for Arthritis), Allergy Medication (Animal Dander and General), Eczema Cream (Eczema), Anxiolytics (Anxiety and SAD), Epi-Pen (Bee Allergy), Iron Supplements (for Anaemia), Vitamins (Preventative Care), Antibiotics (Bacterial Diseases), Antihypertensive Prescription (for Preeclampsia), and Prescription Cough Medication (for Bronchitis and Tuberculosis), and an Inhaler/Ventolin (for Asthma). Vaccinations are also available via wellvisits or by going separately.”

https://www.patreon.com/posts/ 49278885

To start using this mod just open your Sim’s phone and click on the new flower icon. It will open the healthcare services menu. If the option to schedule a doctor’s appointment is greyed out, that means there isn’t anyone in your household that needs to see the doctor.

Also, remember to fill your prescription by clicking on this menu as your Sims aren’t given their medication by the doctor. I’m only mentioning this because it took me a while to figure this out but it might be because my brain has been slowed by all the cookies I’ve been eating this holiday season.

Speaking of eating cookies, which we all know can be bad for your teeth, adeepindigo also has a Dental Care mod. This mod will give your Sims stinky breath when they don’t brush and also give the family a negative moodlet if your Sim comes near them with his death breath, your Sims will get tooth aces, have to get wisdom teeth removed and get braces. https://www.patreon.com/ posts/50316018

You can also make a Dental Appointment event on the calendar. Note about calendar appointments: After first booking the dentist appointment on the computer, you will be prompted to go to your appointment immediately if during office hours (8am-6pm daily). If you want to instead create an event for the appointment to schedule a time for you to send your sim to the dentist via the calendar, you must cancel when the office calls for the appointment (if they do, otherwise, simply proceed to create the event as usual) and can then choose to create a dentist appointment event to schedule a time for your sim to attend their appointment. When the event occurs, you must choose the option on their phone to Go to Dental Appointment in order to complete the goal. I would recommend you do this as it can be a bit overwhelming to get all your Sims to the dentist for check-ups without missing work and school.

While all Sims can still rock fashion glasses at any time, now Sims can be diagnosed with eye issues and require eye care. Regular eye exams, contacts, and eyeglasses can help identify and then mitigate these issues. Laser Eye Surgery is also an option for some conditions. Sims who sit in front of the TV too long can strain their eyes, Sims with vision problems can complain about their poor eyesight, and Mean Sims can even tease others about their eye-wear. Children and Teens can contract Conjunctivitis and Elders are more likely to develop Glaucoma. Note: This mod is designed to only work for ChildrenElders. Sorry toddlers!

While these three mods don’t come as a package deal, it’s best to download all of them as they compliment each other so well. Private Practice from SimRealist is the only mod conflict I’ve found so far but do feel free to let us know if you find any other conflicts. Join the Discord sever for mod support and to keep up with changes to the mods https://href.li/ ?https://discord.com/invite/ tY2DFbw6g4

So, let’s meet the brains behind this mod.

I am from the Washington, DC area. I'm a longtime Simmer, always pasta lover, and a bit of a movie buff. I used to - wait, I still do- but I used to download mods from all these creators all the time but I felt like there were things missing in the game or the mods I downloaded didn't quite do what I wanted. Specifically, there was a career I wanted but the modders who made careers don't always take requests and there's bound to be more people making requests than making mods so I decided to see if I could figure it out on my own. And I did.

My first mod was the Xtreme Career modelled after the ones from Sims 1,2, and 3. It was helpful that I had something to sort of base it on so I could get comfortable with how careers worked, how modding worked, and it just bloomed from there. After traits and careers, I wanted to bring back elements from previous games I'd loved. So that's why I did School Milestones because I missed graduation. I just thought it was so bizarre that there was no high school graduation. And then, I actually had the idea for Healthcare Redux before Dental Care but in the middle of trying to think it through, I realized I wanted to do the Dental Care mod. Why do my sim's brush their teeth? There's no logical reason and one buff just wasn't cutting it. What fuels my modding is essentially - what do I need in my own game? What do I miss from previous iterations and what is Sims 4 missing for my gameplay?

So I decided I needed my sims to go to the dentist and that's how Dental Care was born. Luckily, Sandy - aka AroundtheSims - was game to partner with me on both projects and not just the one. I'm so thankful for her help with the objects, they really elevated the gameplay for me and others. Doing Dental Care first was actually crucial looking back as it really helped me to roadmap Healthcare Redux.

In the future, I want to make the mod more customizable. That's my long term goal for the mod. You, the player, gets to decide how long illnesses last, if your sim's die or not, how prevalent certain diseases should be, etc. This will allow, for instance, history players to use the mod and make better determinations for how diseases are treated. It's a bit of a stretch goal for me as the coding for it is beyond my current capability but I like a good challenge and to learn something new! I also want to separate the prenatal care from the mod. It's a very large, complex mod and I think there's a

comprehensiveness to it that's helpful for my game but it doesn't allow as much picking and choosing in other people's games and I know people would find that helpful. I'm also working on a version that's super stripped down for those who just want to go to the doctor, get some medicine, and go home. I definitely have plans to add more diseases, more treatments, more complications, and more procedures.

I have one mod I just finished SimNation Travel - that's in early access and it adds a travel system to the Sims because how on earth does it not cost them any money to travel? I'm big on having realistic money in the game and a lot of things Sims do is free and it blows my mind. I'm currently working on two mods - the Custom Nuptials mod because I desperately want my sims to be able to make more choices about things they do in game. You know, just like we do in real-life. So instead of exactly one type of wedding that costs between 1000-1750 based on who's hired, I wanted my sims to be able to set a budget, to follow that budget, to pick out who's attending their wedding (because right now in game it's actually pretty limited), choose their attendants, hire a wedding planner, get counselling, have tough discussions, elope - and no standing in one place and then just being married is not eloping, and even have relationships that aren't necessarily marriage and weddings that aren't necessarily weddings but maybe a courthouse ceremony. Not everyone wants the all out affair. The other mod is a Freelance Chef mod where it will work like other freelancer careers where you can choose to work for a Catering Agency or a Pastry agency and your gigs will be informed by which one you pick. Catering will need both styles of cooking and some baking, will mostly focus on cooking group meals, and taking into account hiring staff, meeting with clients, crafting menus, and creating the food while taking into account the client's budget, food and dietary restrictions, and any specific requests - like a fish course. Freelance Pastry Chefs will focus mostly on baking though some cooking (since pre-GTW baked goods recipes are still considered cooking) and will mostly be concerned with meeting clients, researching recipes, doing some teaching of classes, and baking for everything from small teas to large celebrations. I'm having a lot of fun going back to careers - but this time with a twist. So look for those and more in the future!