The Appetite For GLP-1 Is Growing. Here’s What This Means for Employers
Add to their efficacy the fact that our society, unfortunately, is quite fatphobic, and it’s easy to grow their popularity. There’s seemingly a never-ending amount of pressure on people to lose weight for many reasons, and as we all know, physical appearance is often one of them. Because GLP-1s deliver a quick, effective solution to this challenge, there’s been a massive surge in people requesting and receiving prescriptions for GLP-1s for weight loss, whether it's medically indicated or not, i.e., those whose BMI is in the healthy or low overweight range and those who do not have pre-diabetes or type 2 diabetes. Doctors are eager to
help their patients lose weight, and cynics will point out that providers, including telehealth clinics, which have sprouted like weeds lately, often stand to make a lot of money prescribing GLP-1s. GLP-1s may seem like a gift, and in many respects they are, but there’s more to the story here. These drugs mimic the effect of a hormone that stimulates the body to produce more insulin. The complexity is that the sticker price of one injection is nearly $1,000 per month per patient. Additionally, given that GLP-1s' very design requires it to be circulating continuously to be effective, they stop working the
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OCTOBER 2023
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minute a patient stops taking them. Due to the substantial financial burden, numerous employers are grappling with the challenge of covering annual costs that may reach up to $12,000 per employee. What’s more, the lack of longitudinal study on the long-term physical impacts of the medication (especially with regard to weaning) may reinforce an employer’s hesitancy for fear of contributing to a perceived fad that may, in fact, harm employee health over time. So what should companies do as demand around GLP-1s skyrockets among their workforce?
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