Employers are using telehealth companies to oversee patients taking obesity drugs and to curb employer spending on those medicines.
David Davis, a 57-year-old power plant worker near Santa Cruz, Calif., says his insurer required him to get a new prescription through Vida Health before he could fill a Zepbound prescription his primary care doctor had written last December; Davis said, "I thought, 'All right, I'll go through their hoops — I'll jump through their hoops,'" and "The more they wanted, the more frustrated I would get," and he ultimately paid out of pocket for a cheaper compounded version of the drug.
Jayne Hornung, chief clinical officer at MMIT, said, "They've seen this opportunity in the larger market with the GLP-1s and all the wraparound services that they could provide," and she said telehealth providers are being hired by employers looking to minimize spending on weight-related health care; Omada Health told investors its membership grew 51% over the last year to more than a million and said at the end of 2025 it had "supported more than 150,000 members on GLP-1s, compared with more than 50,000 at the end of 2024," and Omada President Wei-Li Shao said, "Omada is neither a gatekeeper of GLP-1s nor are we a vending machine."
Dr. Catherine Varney, obesity medicine director for UVA Health in Charlottesville, Virginia, said she is "like, whoa, whoa" when telehealth providers push patients to come off medications and cited clinical trial evidence that patients regained two-thirds of their weight after stopping treatment; one patient, Penny Byer, 64, said she started Wegovy in April 2025 and reached a healthy body mass index but that Virta Health, after being added to her family's benefits package, "kicked her off the drug in December," after which her weight and cholesterol returned to prior levels and "Everything's come back with a vengeance," she says.
Virta said its own research found patients could sustain weight loss after stopping obesity drugs, a claim at odds with a systematic review published in The BMJ that included 37 studies and 9,341 patients and concluded that cessation of obesity medicines is followed by "rapid weight regain."
Dr. Carolynn Francavilla, vice president of the Obesity Medicine Association, said telehealth programs can help some patients who like logging food and using apps and pointed to Omada user Jackie O'Gorman of Pequannock Township, N.J., who said her Omada coaches helped her reach her goal weight, but Francavilla warned that rules such as regular weight logging can be distressing and said, "If they don't follow those rules, then they may no longer be eligible to get the medication. So that's often a huge challenge and can be very distressing for patients," and she said she is sometimes paid by Eli Lilly to educate other health professionals about obesity medicines.
Vida Health declined to answer questions about Davis' care but said its providers "adhere to clinical eligibility criteria and plan sponsors' coverage policies when prescribing medication: 'At Vida Health, our top priority is delivering personalized, clinically appropriate care for every patient,'" and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas said it "is committed to providing its members access to safe, appropriate, and effective health care within the benefits provided by their own health plan" and that it was reaching out to Davis.