The Doctor Prescribed an Obesity Drug. Her Insurer Called It ‘Vanity.’
By Gina Kolata
Physicians agree that obesity is a chronic disease warranting intensive medical care, including prescription weight-loss drugs, but progress on this front has been slow. Fewer than 1% of U.S. doctors are trained in obesity medicine; and the remainder, perhaps unaware of the various FDA-approved options available, do not often recommend the new medications. "It's the biggest chronic disease of our time, and no one is learning anything about it," laments Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, an obesity medicine specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Even when clinicians prescribe weight-loss medications, patients inevitably face resistance from health insurers, which more likely than not will charge an astronomical amount for what they view as "vanity" drugs rather than a medical necessity. "Access to medicines for the treatment of obesity is dismal in this country," says Stanford. To circumvent the exorbitant pricing — if a drug is covered at all — some specialists prescribe certain weight-loss medications, which double as diabetes treatments, to heavy patients with high blood glucose levels. When submitted to insurers as a diabetes remedy, the cost of the medicine drops substantially. "It's unbelievable," Stanford declares, that people must pay more for the exact same drug just because they are obese.
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