Wegovy, Ozempic and Mounjaro weight loss medication packages.
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The growing demand for diabetes and weight loss drugs like Mounjaro, Ozempic and Wegovy has contributed to fuel higher health costs for large employers. For many, the big question is whether the dear medications known as GLP-1 will be chargeable by improving the health of workers and reducing overall health costs over time. Aon analysts say it already happens.
“We have never seen anything like it, really,” said Greg Case, CEO of AonA business of benefits of employers’ benefits. “There was a reduction of 44% of the main cardiovascular problems. There has been a substantial reduction in osteoporosis. There has been a substantial reduction in pneumonia of several types.”
AON researchers have found that in the two years, improving the health results of patients who took GLP-1 medications, the cost curve on medical care and their employers. However, reaching these savings requires high initial costs.
GLP-1s are at a price of more than $ 1,000 per dose. While the wider approval for drugs stimulates higher demand, this also results in an increase in medication expenses. Since 2023, GLP-1 have increased costs at a rate that specialized drugs at high prices, which include costly cancer and autoimmune treatments, according to an analysis of Evernorm, a division of Cigna.
AON analysts have examined data on medical complaints for 139,000 American workers with employer’s health coverage which has taken GLP-1 medication between 2022 and 2024. Beyond medication costs, the study revealed that GLP-1 patients tend to result in higher medical costs during their first year on drugs, with more visits by doctors to monitor their processing as a process Reflux and to seek help for other problems such as sleep and esophaged conditions such as acid reflux.
“The increase occurs in the first 12 to 15 months,” said Case. “They get remedies on things that are really underlying conditions [of obesity]. “”
But at the end of the second year of treatment with GLP-1 drugs, overall health care costs for patients who took them dropped by 7% on average, compared to workers with similar chronic conditions and obesity characteristics that did not take medication, Aon revealed. For GLP-1 patients who maintained rigorous adhesion to the drug diet, savings were up to 13%.
The largest driver of these savings was the reduction of more than 40% of the main unwanted heart events such as heart attacks and brain vascular accidents, compared to patients who did not take medication, as well as a reduction in the beginning of diabetes.
Case said that with this data, Aon has been able to help customers understand the calendar to see a return to GLP-1 insurance coverage for weight loss, in addition to type 2 diabetes.
“We saw each place where the cost has dropped – and it’s beautiful,” said Case. “You can do it in a way that has a king, which will literally be an economic yield.”
Following his research, Aon launched a subsidized GLP-1 weight management program for his own American workforce, which includes weekly virtual well-being visits and home blood tests to help employees respect the drug diet.
The company will present the complete results of its study at the World Conference of the Milken Institute on Monday.