
LifeMD Review: Membership, Pricing, and Plans
Key takeaways
LifeMD is a membership-based telehealth platform. It's popular for its Weight Management Program with GLP-1 access.
LifeMD Plus membership costs $19 monthly, while its Weight Management Program starts from $79 monthly.
LifeMD accepts Medicare and some insurance plans but has limited coverage.
LifeMD Pros and Cons
Pros
24/7 urgent and primary care
same-day prescriptions
local pharmacy collection
lab testing options
lower cost appointments and medications
member-only offers
no insurance required
Cons
requires a monthly subscription
limited insurance coverage
online only
unsuitable for emergencies
LifeMD Weight Management Program
LifeMD's leading service is its Weight Management Program. It allows members to access the following Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved GLP-1 medications:
On signup, you complete a questionnaire on your health and medical history. Within a week, you are matched with a healthcare professional who will assess your submission and determine if Wegovy is suitable for you.
If you are eligible, you'll undergo lab tests, including a metabolic test. Your provider will then review the results to create a personalized weight loss plan and write a GLP-1 prescription.
As a member of the Weight Management Program, you will receive support from a medical professional and can undergo regular metabolic testing.
The LifeMD Weight Management Program starts from $79 monthly. The cost varies depending on the type of medication.
If members don't experience at least a 10% weight reduction after 1 year, they can receive a refund.
LifeMD Plus services
LifeMD Plus costs $19 monthly and provides access to general healthcare services, including 24/7 primary and urgent care via video visits or chat messaging. It also provides same-day prescriptions.
With LifeMD Plus, members can access services for many health concerns, such as:
urinary tract infections (UTIs)
acne
erectile dysfunction (ED)
premature ejaculation
sexually transmitted infections (STIs)
insomnia and sleep disturbances
allergies and hayfever
arthritis
contraception
migraine
LifeMD also offers routine and specialty lab testing with partner companies Quest Diagnostics or LabCorp. These tests may come as at-home kits or require an in-person visit to a lab. Results are viewable online.
LifeMD pricing and coverage
LifeMD is a membership-based platform, meaning only paying members can access LifeMD services.
The monthly membership costs are:
LifeMD Plus: $19 monthly.
Weight Management Program (GLP-1 injections): from $79 monthly
Weight Management Program (oral medication): $129 monthly
Virtual consultations, prescriptions, and lab work may come at an additional cost and can vary depending on insurance coverage. The costs without insurance are:
video appointment: $50
message-based consults: $20
lab testing: variable
The LifeMD Weight Management Program is not eligible for insurance coverage or Medicare.
Frequently asked questions about LifeMD
Is LifeMD a real company?
Yes, LifeMD is a real and legitimate company.
It provides various telehealth services, including same-day medication prescriptions, general and urgent healthcare consultations via video or chat, and health testing.
Its most popular service is its Weight Management Program with GLP-1 medications.
Yes, LifeMD is a real and legitimate company.
It provides various telehealth services, including same-day medication prescriptions, general and urgent healthcare consultations via video or chat, and health testing.
Its most popular service is its Weight Management Program with GLP-1 medications.
Does LifeMD cost include medication?
LifeMD prescriptions are an additional cost to its membership and offers low cost prescription options.
LifeMD does accept some insurance plans for medication, though this varies depending on the provider and medication.
The LifeMD Weight Management Program does not include the cost of medication. This is an additional payment and is not covered by insurance.
LifeMD prescriptions are an additional cost to its membership and offers low cost prescription options.
LifeMD does accept some insurance plans for medication, though this varies depending on the provider and medication.
The LifeMD Weight Management Program does not include the cost of medication. This is an additional payment and is not covered by insurance.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


CNBC
40 minutes ago
- CNBC
Healthy Returns: New weight loss drug data show Eli Lilly is gaining ground
Competition in the blockbuster weight loss drug market is ramping up, as drugmakers share fresh data on new and existing treatments. The annual American Diabetes Association conference in Chicago showcased results on obesity injections, pills and other therapies this past weekend. Companies big and small are vying for a slice of the weight loss drug space – and for good reason. Some analysts estimate the market could be worth more than $150 billion a year by the end of the decade. While I didn't attend the conference in person this year, I've rounded up some highlights: Eli Lilly steals the show – Wall Street breathed a sigh of relief after the company's experimental pill, orforglipron, helped patients lose weight without serious side effects in a late-stage clinical trial. The highest dose helped patients with Type 2 diabetes lose 7.6% of their body weight during the 40-week study, with no signs of liver damage in those who took the daily treatment. Eli Lilly, which released initial data from the study in April, will unveil results from a separate trial on obese or overweight patients without diabetes later this year. The company plans to launch the pill next year. The drugmaker also teased the future of its portfolio, showcasing treatments that "could further extend Lilly's dominance in the space," BMO Capital Markets analyst Evan Seigerman said in a note on Sunday. Another experimental Eli Lilly drug, bimagrumab, helped preserve lean muscle mass and drive greater fat loss in patients taking the popular obesity treatment Wegovy from Novo Nordisk in a mid-stage trial. The therapy appears to offer a potential solution to a problem that has emerged with existing weight loss injections. Some doctors are concerned that patients may be losing too much lean muscle mass while taking the shots, particularly older adults who can be more frail. Eli Lilly is now running additional studies of the drug in combination with its own weight loss injection, Zepbound, Ken Custer, president of Lilly Cardiometabolic Health, told CNBC. "We think we can get even better [results] on top of tirzepatide," Custer said, referring to the active ingredient in Zepbound. Another experimental therapy from Eli Lilly also helped patients shed pounds with few side effects in a small study, impressing analysts. The drug, called eloralintide, is part of a class of drugs that mimic the hormone amylin, which slows down digestion and makes people feel fuller for longer. Novo Nordisk scrambles to catch up – As Eli Lilly tries to maintain or grow its edge in the weight loss drug market, chief rival Novo Nordisk released full results from late-stage trials on its experimental weekly injection, CagriSema. Investors hammered the company's stock in December after preliminary trial results showed CagriSema had missed its target of 25% average weight loss, with less than half of the patients hitting that goal. But the full results show that patients lost significant weight, even if they chose to stick with a lower dose of the treatment. The studies allowed patients to stop at lower doses if they wanted to manage side effects or if they were already losing enough weight. The full data at the conference also highlighted a "relatively clean safety profile" for CagriSema, Seigerman said in a separate note on Monday. The drug had similar side effects to Wegovy despite delivering more weight loss. CagriSema is a combination of cagrilintide – which mimics amylin – and semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy. Novo Nordisk also released data from a pair of early trials on another experimental drug called amycretin. The drug helped patients lose as much as 24.3% of their weight after 36 weeks, and also showed signs of improving blood sugar levels with side effects generally in line with other obesity medicines. The treatment mimics the same gut hormone as Wegovy to tamp down appetite and regulate blood sugar, but also combines it with amylin. The companies plan to advance both injectable and oral versions of amycretin into late-stage trials for weight management, Novo Nordisk said in a release. Amgen outlines next steps for obesity injection – As Amgen tries to make waves in the two-company race, it needs to improve on results from late-stage trials on its experimental monthly weight loss injection, Seigerman said in a separate note on Monday. Amgen has laid out its plan for the weight loss market, which is based on results it presented on two trials at the conference. The company said its drug, MariTide, led to significant weight loss but high rates of side effects and discontinuations in a mid-stage trial. Amgen released initial data from that trial back in November. Rates of patients who discontinued the drug due to side effects were high, ranging from 10% to 29% within different groups that took it. Rates of vomiting ranged from 43% to 92%. Groups of patients that gradually increased dosage had lower rates of discontinuations and vomiting than those who did not. However, a smaller phase one study showed that starting patients on lower doses of MariTide and using more gradual dose escalation improved how well they tolerated the drug. The two groups with the lowest starting initial doses experienced rates of vomiting of around 23% and 24%, and there were no discontinuations due to side effects. "Lower starting doses and more steps helps patients," Jay Bradner, executive vice president of research and development at Amgen, told CNBC. He added that MariTide's side effects are "short-lived," and that the data informed the design of Amgen's 72-week phase three trials on the drug. The company is using lower starting doses and three steps of dose escalation over an eight-week period in those studies. By week eight, patients will reach one of three different target doses of MariTide. "What we achieve by dose escalation is to allow the brain to tolerate the next step of doses," Bradner said, noting that it's a strategy used with Wegovy and Zepbound. But MariTide may have an advantage over those rival treatments since it will use fewer steps and increase doses over a shorter period of time, he said. In a note on Monday, Jefferies analysts said they believe the phase three data will come in "better than expectations." They said the key takeaway is that Amgen's lower and slower dosing plan will significantly improve side effects and lower discontinuations, and "might even further boost efficacy" in the trials if patients stay on the drug and experience its full effects. At the end of the year, Amgen will also have data on patients who took MariTide every quarter, according to Bradner. Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas and data to Annika at The investments just keep pouring in. Abridge on Tuesday announced it closed a $300 million funding round led by Andreessen Horowitz, with participation from Khosla Ventures. The round comes just months after the startup raised another $250 million in fresh capital earlier this year. Founded in 2018, Abridge uses artificial intelligence to draft clinical notes in real time as doctors consensually record their visits with patients. The startup is part of a market that has exploded as health-care executives search for solutions to help reduce staff burnout and daunting administrative workloads. Abridge has now raised nearly $818 million, according to PitchBook, and it partners with more than 150 health systems across the U.S. The company earned a spot on CNBC's Disruptor 50 list this year. "It's a privilege, ultimately, to continue to create the impact that we want to continue to have for clinicians, patients and other members of the healthcare ecosystem," Julia Chou, Abridge's chief operating officer, told CNBC in an interview. Chou said that Abridge's fresh capital will help the company to push beyond traditional clinical notes. The startup is working to embed relevant revenue cycle information into its product, for instance, which would help make the documentation more compliant and alleviate downstream workflows. Abridge is not the only AI documentation startup that's thinking about health-care billing. Another AI scribing startup, Ambience Healthcare, has also been exploring applications around revenue cycle management. The company announced a new medical coding model in May that can listen to patient encounters and identify ICD-10 codes, which are internationally standardized classifications for different diseases and conditions. Ambience has raised more than $100 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins, Andreessen Horowitz and the OpenAI Startup Fund, according to PitchBook. The company is seeking fresh capital at a valuation of over $1 billion, according to a report from The Information. AI scribing companies' push into billing could help them market their products to cash-strapped health systems as true revenue drivers, and not just time-saving tools. Abridge says it is just getting started. "AI is coming to the doctor's office," Chou said. "The aspiration is for it to make your visits feel really human again." Feel free to send any tips, suggestions, story ideas and data to Ashley at


Miami Herald
an hour ago
- Miami Herald
Kendall companies and doctors pay $810,000 to settle Medicare fraud charges
Just over $810,000 brought an end to a five-year federal court civil case in which a Kendall radiology center and some of its doctors were accused of Medicare fraud. The settlement agreement allows Vascular and Interventional Specialists, Vascular and Spine Institute, Dr. Oscar Sosa and Dr. Osmany DeAngelo to continue to deny admitting to charging Medicare for unnecessary angioplasty procedures from Jan. 1, 2015, through Sept. 30, 2019. But the two companies — which state corporate records say are run by Sosa, Gary Tie-Shue and Peter Clayton out of 9175 SW 87th Ave. — and the two doctors are paying $810,301 to bring this case to a conclusion. MORE: Miami plastic surgery center once sued by 50 Cent now on suspension Sosa has been licensed in Florida since May 2000. According to online state records, Sosa has never faced professional discipline, but state insurance records say his malpractice insurance paid $225,000 after a procedure involving two angioplasties left a patient with a 'right foot drop,' which Cleveland Clinic describes as 'a symptom in which you drag your toes when you walk due to weakness or paralysis of certain muscles in your foot.' DeAngelo has been licensed in Florida as an osteopathic physician since May 2004. Although he has no professional discipline history, this isn't the first time he has faced trouble related to an angiogram. State insurance records say DeAngelo's malpractice insurance paid $250,000 on Aug. 31, 2021, after his 'alleged failure to fully describe findings and recommend additional treatments or transfer' after interpreting an angiogram while at Larkin Community Hospital in South Miami. This case was originally filed by whistleblower Dr. Emilio Lopez, who provided radiology services at Vascular from Oct. 1, 2018, until Aug. 26, 2019. The False Claims Act allows Lopez to file suit on behalf of the federal government and get a cut of the money recovered. In this case, that share is $186,369. The flow of blood — and money? 'Angioplasty is a procedure used to open blocked coronary arteries caused by coronary artery disease,' Johns Hopkins Medical Center says. 'It restores blood flow to the heart muscle without open-heart surgery.' Angioplasty is one of the vascular and radiology services offered on an outpatient basis at Vascular, which operated out of 7887 North Kendall Dr. during the 2015-2019 period in question. The case alleged that Vascular altered patient medical records or lied on patient medical records to make it appear as if various angioplasties were necessary. Lopez's lawsuit claimed the Vascular management tried to bring him into the alleged scheme on various levels, but he refused. 'On Aug. 23, 2019, [Lopez] again discussed the defendants' fraudulent practices with Clayton, Sosa, and DeAngelo,' the lawsuit said. 'At the meeting, Clayton, Sosa, and DeAngelo offered no explanation for how the surgeries were medically necessary and nonfraudulent. The defendants made it clear to [Lopez] that their practices would continue despite [Lopez's] repeated protestations. 'On various occasions, Sosa laughed off [Lopez's] concerns. For example, he stated that if the govenment audited VIS, DeAngelo 'would be the only one going to jail.' He also commented that 'nobody ever has to pay any of the money back.''


Forbes
2 hours ago
- Forbes
InnovationRx: Health Insurers Vow To Improve Prior Authorization (Again)
In this week's edition of InnovationRx, we look at efforts to improve prior authorization, commercializing Bell Labs' IP portfolio, a new billionaire from Caris Life Sciences' IPO, a big funding round for robots to do cataract surgery, and more. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here . AFP via Getty Images On Monday, representatives from multiple health insurance companies said they had pledged to the Department of Health and Human Services that they would improve their prior authorization procedures, the bureaucratic process required for them to pay for certain tests, medications or procedures. The insurers vowed to reduce the number of claims subject to prior authorization, standardize electronic requests for them and offer 90% of approvals in real time by 2027. This isn't the first time the industry has pledged to streamline the prior authorization process. Insurers made a similar pledge during the first Trump Administration in 2018, with some of those promises echoing language in the current announcement. When Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz was asked at a press event why he thought this effort could work when others have failed, he replied that 'there is violence in the streets over these issues now,' presumably alluding to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last December. The technology is better now, too, he said, and the Administration plans to back the efforts with regulation. 'Either you fix it, or we'll fix it,' Oz told the insurance company execs. Bell Labs Is Commercializing Its Historic IP Portfolio, Starting With Healthcare Nishant Batra, Nokia's chief strategy and technology officer, has made commercializing Bell Labs' IP a priority. Nokia For decades, Bell Labs' research was legendary–an innovation factory that spawned transistors, lasers and solar cells. But its researchers were always better at ideas than commercialization. Even today, lots of patents and research ideas remain tucked away in its suburban New Jersey offices. Since joining Nokia in 2021, chief strategy and technology officer Nishant Batra has been working to change that. He told Forbes that when he kicked off the commercialization effort, he thought he could spin out two or three companies a year, but now thinks he may be able to do three to five. 'The world wouldn't exist without Bell Labs, but what Bell Labs does not do well is monetization,' Batra told Forbes. A big part of the effort to change that comes with a partnership with deep tech investor Celesta, which has $1.1 billion in assets under management and with whom Nokia has co-invested in the past. The two are scouring Bell Labs' IP portfolio for pieces of technology that might have commercial applications – and the first spinout is in healthcare. That first company, called Astranu, spun out in May with a small amount of seed funding, to apply Bell Labs' imaging technology known as integrated optical coherence tomography to diagnostics of middle ear conditions. It ultimately hopes to transform ear diagnostic care with advanced, non-invasive, high-resolution 3D imaging by reducing the need for exploratory surgery and expensive MRIs 'We built this technology for optical use, for communications,' Batra said. But as Bell Labs' researchers and Celesta's investors analyzed the technology, they realized what was built for communications could be applied to creating an accurate, handheld test for the middle ear. 'Our researchers on optical said, 'this is a good application,' and our friends at Celesta said, 'we can take this to market with you,'' Batra said. Most of this hidden-away IP won't be healthcare-related, but it's intriguing that the first company to launch from the Bell Labs' portfolio is, which not only shows the breadth of its research applications, but also how many technology innovations can be adapted to help patients. 'We call it 'bioconvergence,'' said Celesta's founding managing partner Sriram Viswanathan, noting how miniaturization of technology could be extremely helpful for medical applications. 'It's the intersection of advanced AI and semiconductor-related technologies as it applies to life sciences and biotech. Think about it as diagnostics more than therapeutics….There are so many applications in the healthcare area that we see this as a natural.' BIOTECH AND PHARMA Drugmaker Novo Nordisk said on Monday that it was ending its arrangement to sell its weight-loss drug, Wegovy, through telehealth provider Hims & Hers. The pharmaceutical company accused Hims & Hers of using 'deceptive marketing' to sell knockoff versions of its drug in a statement. The stock price of Hims & Hers collapsed shortly after the announcement, cutting its market capitalization by nearly one-third to a recent $9.6 billion, pummeling the fortune of cofounder and CEO Andrew Dudum , who is no longer a billionaire. Plus : A study published in the Journal of Immunology identified a biomarker that helps predict whether colorectal patients will respond to treatment using cytokine-induced killer cells. DIGITAL HEALTH AND AI Last week, precision medicine company Caris Life Sciences went public, minting a new billionaire in founder David Dean Halbert. At the company's recent market cap of $7.4 billion, Halbert is worth at least $3.3 billion by Forbes calculations. He owns nearly 44% of the company. 'I fundamentally believed that if there was something wrong with the human body, there was something misfiring at the molecular level and technology advances could find that and diagnose it and possibly treat it,' Halbert told Forbes. Read more here. Plus : Medical scribing startup Abridge reached a valuation of $5.3 billion after raising $300 million in venture funding led by Andreessen Horowitz. The Pittsburgh-based company has surged as doctors and health systems have adopted ambient listening apps, and the new valuation is nearly double the $2.75 billion it was worth when it last raised funds in February. Cofounder and CEO Shiv Rao told Forbes that he 'wasn't surprised per se' by the new valuation because of how quickly AI is changing the way companies operate. Abridge is expanding from using ambient listening to improve the doctor-patient relationship to using the technology to help health systems with their billing and coding. 'Why we have raised capital and invested so heavily in R&D is that we are taking our models to revenue school and risk-adjustment school,' he said. MEDTECH Cataract surgery is one of the world's most common medical procedures, with more than 4 million of them done each year in the United States alone, but there simply aren't enough doctors available to meet the demand for everyone who needs the surgery. Enter robotics. An Israeli startup is betting that robots can ultimately do it better and cheaper than human doctors. ForSight Robotics on Tuesday said it had raised $125 million led by Eclipse Ventures to expand its robotic platform, called Oryom, which it says is the world's first for cataracts and other eye diseases. The funding represents one of the largest investments in a surgical robotics startup, and brings ForSight's total investment to $195 million. 'At first people were intimidated by robotics' advancement,' Dr. Joseph Nathan, ForSight's cofounder, president and chief medical officer, told Forbes. 'Now they are seeing robotics as the things that will get them the best outcomes.' Read more here. PUBLIC HEALTH AND HOSPITALS The CDC's Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which makes recommendations for vaccine practices, is scheduled to meet today and tomorrow to discuss vaccines for COVID-19, flu and RSV. Senator Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, called for the panel to be delayed, citing the lack of expertise among the new appointees of HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the fact that it includes fewer members than is typical. RFK Jr. purged the vaccine advisory committee earlier this of the committee's new members have expressed skepticism about vaccines, in keeping with his own views. But a new poll from the Harvard Opinion Research Program found these attitudes to be out-of-step with the vast majority of Americans. The survey found that 79% of Americans believe that parents should be required to vaccinate their children in order to attend school, and that even among Republicans 66% held this view. Among the remainder who didn't support mandatory vaccinations, 60% believed vaccines to be safe and effective–they just prefer to leave the choice up to parents. Plus : The American Cancer Society released the latest version of its Cancer Atlas today, which found that "an estimated 50% of all cancer deaths worldwide are attributed to modifiable risk factors" and urged public health officials to accordingly focus on prevention. WHAT WE'RE READING People with severe diabetes were cured in a small trial of a new stem cell-based infusion from Vertex Pharmaceuticals. The GOP is pushing Medicaid work requirements even though similar efforts in Georgia and Arkansas have fallen flat. Changes at federal health agencies leave experts concerned that the U.S. is in worse shape to handle a new pandemic than it was before 2020. Researchers say that their studies were misrepresented by Health and Human Services to unjustifiably support anti-vaccine conclusions in a memo to Congress. Arine, which has developed an AI-powered platform for medication management, raised $30 million in venture funding led by Town Hall Ventures. A new flu drug could be better than a vaccine. In a small phase 2 study, a drug developed by Cidara Therapeutics offered 76.1% protection against catching the flu versus a placebo, higher protection than many flu vaccines. MORE FROM FORBES Forbes The 36 Colleges Most At Risk From Pell Grant Cuts By Fiona Riley Forbes US And Israel Should Prepare For Destructive Iranian Cyberattacks, Ex-Intel Officer Says By Thomas Brewster Forbes How New Balance Went From 'Dad Shoe' To Scoring The No. 1 NBA Draft Prospect By Justin Birnbaum