How to get weight loss drugs without insurance
(NewsNation) — While weight loss medications are usually not covered by insurance, there are other ways to secure a medication without a provider.
There are 13 states whose Medicaid programs allow for GLP-1 drugs to be used for the treatment of obesity. Some GLP-1 drugs are only covered by insurance when prescribed for diabetes. Here are your options for getting medication without insurance.
If you are looking to get a weight loss drug but lack insurance coverage, telehealth websites such as Ro, Hers and Mochi Health sell GLP-1 drugs for lower prices than what you'd pay at a pharmacy, with plans for certain medications starting at $69 per month.
GoodRx also offers coupons that lower the price of some weight loss medications if purchased at a pharmacy.
Dental expenses you can pay for using an HSA
In April, drugmaker Novo Nordisk announced it would be collaborating with telehealth services such as Hims and LifeMD to start home shipments of its medication Wegovy for self-paying customers at a cost of $499 per month.
Eli Lilly sells its weight loss medication Zepbound directly from its pharmacy, LillyDirect, between $349 to $499 per month depending on the dosage.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Florence County health worker charged with Medicaid fraud
FLORENCE COUNTY, S.C. (WBTW) — A Florence County health worker has been charged with Medicaid fraud, the South Carolina Attorney General's Office said Tuesday. Jacqueline Burgess, 59, of Scranton, was charged with medical assistance provider fraud. She was booked into the Alvin S. Glenn Detention Center on Tuesday. An investigation revealed that between Dec. 4, 2023, and June 21, 2024, Burgess allegedly knowingly and wilfully caused false claims for payments to the state Department of Health and Human Services, the agency that administers South Carolina's Medicaid program. Burgess, a care attendant with Tender Care Home Health Care, allegedly submitted false timesheets indicating she had rendered care services for a Medicaid beneficiary when she had not, according to the attorney general's office. Burgess may face up to three years in prison and a fine of up to $1,000. * * * Caleb is a digital producer at News13. Caleb joined the team in January 2023 after graduating from Liberty University. He is from Northern Virginia. Follow Caleb on X, formerly Twitter, and read more of his work here. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
38 minutes ago
- Yahoo
In memo, Trump targets health care payments that 'game the system'
BOSTON (SHNS) – As the U.S. Senate prepares to take its own crack at legislation that includes hundreds of millions of dollars in cuts to Medicaid, the president late last week made his thoughts on one provision clear and it could impact how Massachusetts and other states finance public health care. Late on Friday, President Donald Trump issued a memo ordering U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert Kennedy Jr. to 'eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse in Medicaid, including by ensuring Medicaid payments rates are not higher than Medicare.' The move targeted state directed payments, a Medicaid financing mechanism that gives states flexibility to require managed care organizations to pay providers specific rates or to implement rate increases to advance delivery system or state policy objectives, most commonly improving access to care. State directed payments came about as a result of a 2016 Medicaid reform, but they have grown significantly in popularity since then. There were 250 unique directed payment arrangements approved between July 1, 2021 and Feb. 1, 2023, according to the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC). The commission said the number increased by almost 21% to 302 unique arrangements approved between Feb. 1, 2023 and Aug. 1, 2024. The arrangements approved as of Aug. 1, 2024 were projected to spend a total of $110.2 billion a year, a 59% increase over the $69.3 billion in projected spending identified by the commission's analysis of arrangements approved as of Feb. 1, 2023. 'This trajectory threatens the Federal Treasury and Medicaid's long-term stability, and the imbalance between Medicaid and Medicare patients threatens to jeopardize access to care for our seniors,' Trump wrote in the memo. Trump said states and health care providers have used state directed payments 'to game the system,' echoing concerns previously raised by experts. The president outlined the scheme: states charge assessments on health care providers in order to nudge up reported state spending to score higher federal reimbursements, but then send 'the same money back to them in the form of a 'Medicaid payment,' which automatically unlocked for healthcare providers an additional 'burden-sharing' payment from the Federal Government.' 'Instead of paying Medicare rates, many States that utilize these arrangements now pay the same healthcare providers almost three times the Medicare amount,' the president said. The U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Service has approved 63 such arrangements for Massachusetts since March 2023, according to CMS data. The budget reconciliation bill passed last month by the U.S. House and expected to be taken up this month by the U.S. Senate would, among many other things, extend Trump's first-term tax cuts and reduce Medicaid spending by nearly $700 billion to help pay for it. Officials at MassHealth, which combines Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Program, have said the Bay State could be in jeopardy of losing more than $1 billion annually, with hundreds of thousands of residents at risk of losing coverage. Health policy nonprofit KFF said the bill directs U.S. Health and Human Services to revise state directed payment regulations so that the total payment rate for inpatient hospital and nursing facility services is capped at 100% of the total published Medicare payment rate. The 100% limit would apply to Massachusetts and other states that have adopted the Medicaid expansion, and the limit would be 110% for the 10 states that have not adopted the expansion. But the U.S. House version of the bill would grandfather in any state directed payments submitted for approval and approved prior to the legislation's enactment. MassHealth has previously said that so-called safety net providers could sustain cuts of hundreds of millions of dollars annually if Congress or the president blocks renewal of Massachusetts's existing state directed payments. MassHealth and the Mass. Executive Office of Health and Human Services did not respond over the weekend or Monday to a request for comment on the president's memo on state directed payments. Manatt Health Senior Managing Director Patricia Boozang said in March that Massachusetts uses state directed payments 'extensively' and that the Trump administration was likely to act on its own to address them if the president's favored policies don't advance as part of the reconciliation package. The Congressional Budget Office said last month that the bill as passed by the U.S. House will mean $698 billion less in federal subsidies for Medicaid, $267 billion less in federal spending for SNAP, $64 billion less in net spending for all other purposes, and a $3.8 trillion increase in the federal deficit all over the next decade. The CBO also said it expects the reductions in federal spending to lead to about $78 billion in additional spending among the 50 states 'accounting for changes in state contributions to SNAP and Medicaid and for state tax and spending policies necessary to finance additional spending.' The office said it was still analyzing 'expectations of the states' responses to changes in federal funding.' The budget plans that House and Senate negotiators are attempting to reconcile into a final fiscal 2026 state budget assume about $15.76 billion in federal revenues, an increase over the $14.3 billion in the current budget, including $14.2 billion in federal MassHealth reimbursements alone. Most of the cuts in the U.S. House bill would hit in federal fiscal year 2027, which begins Oct. 1, 2026 (three months into Massachusetts' fiscal year 2027). Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
2 Weight Loss Drug Stocks That Are Screaming Buys in June
Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have most of the GLP-1 drug market to themselves. Based on current pipelines, this state of affairs could continue. Both stocks are attractively priced at the moment. 10 stocks we like better than Novo Nordisk › Is there a hotter trend in healthcare than weight loss drugs? Probably not. Research from Morgan Stanley suggests that sales of weight loss drugs will soar from an estimated $15 billion last year to as much as $150 billion by 2035. That would be a tenfold increase in just over a decade. Most current medications for weight loss are GLP-1 agonists, which suppress patients' appetites by slowing digestion and making them feel full. Two companies, Novo Nordisk (NYSE: NVO) and Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY), currently dominate this area, together accounting for an estimated 97% of the market share. Can they can stay atop this fast-growing industry? Here's what I found -- and why they could both be screaming buys right now in June 2025. Whenever an opportunity exhibits such rapid growth, it will inevitably attract competition. Indeed, numerous companies are currently developing weight loss drugs. However, it's quite a leap to assume that Novo Nordisk, with 62% of the GLP-1 market, and Eli Lilly with another 35%, will easily cede their market share to new products. First and foremost, drug development is a challenging process that undergoes rigorous regulatory testing. Many of the drugs in development today will ultimately fail to reach the market. In April, industry heavyweight Pfizer abandoned development of its oral weight loss drug danuglipron, after it may have caused a liver injury in a patient during a clinical trial. Weight loss drugs that do make it to market must then actually compete with what patients already use. That boils down to more than price: Efficacy, side effects, and prescribers' comfort levels with products all make a difference in how these treatments ultimately sell. The weight loss opportunity is currently in its early innings. The leading drugs -- Novo Nordisk's Ozempic and Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Mounjaro and Zepbound -- are injected, require refrigeration, and remain expensive for patients. Upcoming drugs will include more convenient oral pills; some could be cheaper to produce, and thus could be sold at lower prices. Naturally, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly have remained active in order to stay atop the market. Novo Nordisk could soon have an oral GLP-1 agonist for sale; it has filed an application for approval of an oral version of Wegovy. The company hopes to receive a nod by the end of this year. Additionally, its candidate CagriSema, a potential successor to Wegovy, is working through phase 3 trials. At this rate, CagriSema could arrive sometime next year. Eli Lilly is also very active. Its experimental oral weight loss drug, orforglipron, has performed well in phase 3 studies. It could be the first small-molecule drug to hit the market; small-molecule drugs are easier and cheaper to manufacture. Its next-generation injectable therapy, retatrutide, is innovative in that it targets three separate hormones related to hunger. Retatrutide is also currently in phase 3 studies, and could arrive in 2027 if all goes well. Boehringer Ingelheim's survodutide, an injected therapy that could arrive in 2027, is arguably the only potential near-term competition worth noting. There aren't any other immediate threats to Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly's dominance. The next hopeful, MariTide from Amgen, only begins phase 3 studies in March; if approved, its estimated market arrival would be in 2028. Barring something unexpected, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly appear well positioned to capture much of that explosive growth in the weight loss market over the coming years. The question is, which industry giant will do better? Wall Street is currently placing its money on Eli Lilly, as evidenced by the stock's significant valuation premium. Shares trade at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 62, versus just 22 for Novo Nordisk. Novo Nordisk's CagriSema has struggled to outperform existing treatments in clinical trials, while Eli Lilly's orforglipron has performed well. However, how patients choose treatments involves several factors, so it's not a sure thing that Eli Lilly will capture all this market share from Novo Nordisk. The best solution? Own both. One way to value them is by their PEG ratios, which weigh the stocks' valuations against the companies' expected growth rates: Novo Nordisk PEG ratio: 1.5 Eli Lilly PEG ratio: 1.9 Both companies are reasonably priced for their expected long-term earnings growth, currently 14% annualized for Novo Nordisk and 32% annualized for Eli Lilly. Of course, that could play out differently, but it's all the more reason to own both stocks. One way or another, these two companies will likely split the upside in the weight loss drug market. Before you buy stock in Novo Nordisk, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Novo Nordisk wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $669,517!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $868,615!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 792% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 173% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join . See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of June 9, 2025 Justin Pope has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amgen and Pfizer. The Motley Fool recommends Novo Nordisk. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. 2 Weight Loss Drug Stocks That Are Screaming Buys in June was originally published by The Motley Fool
