Futter provider Henry Meds no longer offers combined tilzepatide injections, but allowed patients to order in stages. He proceeded and ordered a few months’ worth of vials, but didn’t know what he would do when he escaped. “I’m very nervous about what’s going to happen,” he says. “I’m making sure I can stretch it a little longer with every drop I can do from every vial.” (At publication, Henry Metz offers capabilities to new and current patients. Bulk Order 40 Weeks Semaglutide Injection. Henry Med did not respond to a request for comment. )
Jim Bertel, 41, who lives in Colorado and praises Tilzepatide for changing his life, was also able to stockpile his combined GLP-1 drug before his provider ceased to sell it. He’s not sure what he’s going to do when he escapes later this month, and spends his time on Reddit and Facebook forums to find out which telehealth companies are still offering versions of the drug. “Now, my plan is to take it every month,” he says. “Provider to Provider Hopping.”
Jesse, 40, who asked to be identified by her name alone, turned to medical spas to get combined medicines if they were unable to obtain consistent access through insurance or primary care providers. Her provider initially wrote her Wegovy prescription, but she says it was “touch and go.” She was able to supplement the combined version of Med Spa when Med Spa was not available. However, at the end of last year, Jesse received a letter from her insurance company saying it would no longer cover Wegovy. Her primary care provider then stopped writing weight loss medication prescriptions. She returned to Med Spa and was able to obtain the recently combined Semaglutide in April, but said the facility could not advance supply. She is now considering buying medicines from Mexico. Because she travels frequently to San Diego for work. “It’s the same medicine, you don’t need a prescription and it’s cheap,” she says. In Mexico, the brand Wegovy You can buy it for about $200 a month.
The coverage of uneven insurance has helped to drive demand for combined GLP-1 products. Although Wegovy and Zepbound are approved for patients with a body mass index of 30 or higher and are 27 or higher for patients with at least one weight-related illness, some insurance plans require a higher BMI or additional criteria when covering medications for obesity. “The whole underlying theme here is stigma and bias that we don’t recognize obesity as a disease like cancer, diabetes and all other things,” says Florencia Halperin, endocrinologist and chief medical officer at Form Health, an online medical weight loss clinic.
Amanda Bonello, founder and CEO of GLP-1 Collective, a nonprofit organization that aims to help patients access these drugs, isn’t surprised by the length of time patients go. Combined with GLP-1 products, Bonero says that for many of the patients she speaks, the effects of these drugs are not merely weight.
