Connecticut's employee health plan is using a lifestyle management program to control the costs of weight loss drugs, Politico reported Nov. 15.
Since July, state employees seeking GLP-1 drugs for weight loss must enroll in a lifestyle management program called Flyte. Participants can receive personalized treatment plans from Flyte providers, who may prescribe GLP-1 drugs or another course of treatment.
As of Nov. 3, 1,501 of Connecticut's more than 265,000 state employees had participated in the Flyte program, Politico reported. Eighty percent were prescribed a GLP-1 drug by a Flyte provider, and the number of new prescriptions is plateauing.
GLP-1 drugs, which include Ozempic, Trulicity, Victoza and Mounjaro, are approved to treat Type 2 diabetes, though these drugs are prescribed off-label for weight loss. Wegovy and Saxenda, manufactured by Novo Nordisk, and Eli Lily's Zepbound are approved for weight loss.
The drugs are expensive, costing upward of $10,000 a year without insurance. Because of the high cost, some employers have stopped paying for the drug. Mayo Clinic is implementing a lifetime limit of $20,000 for weight loss drug coverage for its employees, and other employers have dropped coverage of the drugs entirely.
Read Politico's full report here.