January 13, 2025 — Many years of working on obesity has taught us one thing. Success does not come easily. And yet in this new year, it appears that the new administration in Washington will have an opportunity to claim an easy win on obesity. CMS has a new rule for obesity drugs that can become final in the […]
January 12, 2025 — Last week we got another glimpse of incremental progress in coverage for obesity medicines in health insurance plans. CMS announced that Medicare drug plans (Part D or Medicare Advantage) could now cover Zepbound (tirzepatide) when doctors prescribe it to patients for obesity and sleep apnea. This is not the opening of floodgates. It is movement […]
December 13, 2024 — Some pharmacy benefit plans have taken a dark turn when it comes to obesity medicines. Let’s not sugarcoat it. They are exploiting people with obesity through abusive copays on drugs like Wegovy and Ozempic – two brands of semaglutide. These PBMs pretend they are covering part of the cost of the drug. But in fact, […]
December 10, 2024 — A pitched battle is underway. The fight is for equitable access to obesity medicines that can be life-changing for people living with obesity. Right now, we have a bit of a stalemate and money is the sticking point. So when Andrew Ross Sorkin put the question of greed, economics, and health to the CEO of […]
February 18, 2024 — Who knew that financial toxicity was a thing? Perhaps like us, you have merely thought of it as the financial burden of healthcare – without assigning it the status of a medical complication that dysfunctional healthcare causes. But recent publications are making it ever more clear that people living with chronic diseases are having to […]
July 28, 2023 — Obesity care is in an awkward phase. Science has advanced to provide a better understanding of this complex disease and better tools to treat it. But health systems and public understanding can’t keep up. As a result, very effective new obesity medicines exist behind walls that keep most people from receiving their benefits. For now, […]
May 8, 2023 — Semaglutide for the treatment of obesity continues to be in short supply. Late last week, Novo Nordisk announced that, because the company is still having difficulty keeping up with demand, they would limit production of the lower doses used to start patients on Wegovy. Thus, compounding pharmacies are selling cheap copies of semaglutide injection and […]
July 8, 2021 — This is seriously messed up. Let’s consider the case of two innovative new drugs and how health insurance will cover them. Each of them treats a chronic disease that can devastate a person’s health and quality of life. But these are different diseases and very different drugs. One offers a breakthrough in effectiveness. In fact, […]
