By: Nic Hayes
Over 40% of American adults are impacted by obesity. And, when it comes to a person’s health, obesity can have wide-ranging impacts that can worsen other chronic conditions and negatively affect their overall health. With the recent wave of GLP-1 drugs and even more weight-loss drugs coming in the pipeline, as an employer, it is important to have an employee benefits strategy that provides your employees with the resources and tools they need to lead a healthy lifestyle – with or without medication.
Understanding GLP-1s
GLP-1s have suddenly come to be a ubiquitous tool when it comes to weight-loss. However, whether taking these medications or providing them to your plan members, it is important to understand how these medications work and how they should be utilized to bring about desired outcomes.
This class of medications was originally designed to help treat diabetes. Over time, though, the realization was made that these medications also caused weight-loss for a lot of people who used them for diabetes. The reasoning for this is that the medication mimics one of the body’s natural hormones. By mimicking this hormone, the medication helps to make you feel fuller quicker and longer, and it works in the brain to help regulate appetite. Because of this, a number of medications in this class have been approved for weight management, overweight, and obesity. In addition to helping people manage weight, these medications are shown to have been effective in improving cardiovascular complications.
As more and more people begin to take these medications, some misconceptions have begun to arise around them. In deciding whether to take or offer these medications, it is important to know the facts around it supported by clinical trial data. Some common misconceptions include:
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GLP-1s will work for everyone. While these medications may work for many, there are some who do not respond to these medications as evidenced by the clinical trials. Additionally, with GLP-1s, it takes time to move the dose up to the target dose – anywhere from three to six months.
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You cannot use GLP-1s if you experience side effects when taking the drug. All medications in this class of drug comes with side effects. However, there are strategies, such as monitoring the kind and quantity of food you eat, to help mitigate these side effects and achieve desired outcomes.
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GLP-1s alone can help you lose significant weight. One of the most common misconceptions, GLP-1s alone will not allow you to get and keep weight off. In all of the clinical trials that led to the approval of the drug, the desired outcomes were achieved as a result of taking the drug along with lifestyle modifications in diet and exercise. Added Jessica Lea, CEO of Tria Health, “While we would all love the magic pill, there's no magic pill. However, there are strategies, such as monitoring the kind and quantity of food you eat or slowing the dose titration, to help mitigate these side effects and achieve desired outcomes.”
Tria Health’s Choose to Lose Program
Tria Health focuses on ensuring that individuals who have chronic conditions have the opportunity to work with a pharmacist to ensure that they achieve the best outcomes. In the case of GLP-1s and needing lifestyle modifications to reach desired results, Tria’s Choose to Lose program provides individuals with pharmacist lead interventions and health coaching revolving around nutrition and exercise.
Tria’s approach is centered on building a strong relationship with each patient in order to understand their unique needs, and from there, they are able to build a program that meets each member where they are. Through the program, Tria’s health coaches create tailored nutrition plans, utilize food logs to understand the member’s quality of food, and develop realistic physical activity components to get members moving in a healthy way. On the program, Jenny Edwards, Manager of Health and Wellness, added, “All of those are components, and really the goal setting, the communication with the health coach on a regular basis helps really cement that and help them [the member] sustain those goals over the long term.”
The Future of Anti-Obesity Medications (i.e. GLP-1s)
Currently, there’s about a 50% coverage rate for employers when it comes to specific GLP-1s. Obesity is a chronic condition, which is prompting many organizations to begin providing coverage for obesity. Additionally, the approval of anti-obesity medications for the prevention of other chronic conditions could cause more employers to cover them, especially if they are seeing high rates of multiple chronic conditions tied to obesity.
Having a strategy for members dedicated to leading them to healthier lifestyles is crucial for any organization. If an employer chooses to offer these medications, they must also involve a lifestyle management program like Tria to cheer members on along the way, provide them with the tools to be successful, inform them on how to access the medication and whether its right for them, and lead them to the desired outcomes for both their long-term health and reduced costs for the employer.
We are proud to feature Tria Health on the Granite List.
