Noom for Work, Noom’s digital enterprise unit, announced the expansion of its offering to include access to Noom Med, a clinical obesity management solution. With growing employee and member demand for obesity support and anti-obesity medications, the commercial offering for Noom Med provides access to not only its personalized psychological tools, community, and content, but also to clinicians with obesity care training who deliver customized plans to optimize weight loss goals. True to Noom’s industry-leading behavior change capabilities, Noom Med also supports patients who are seeking to reduce reliance on GLP-1 medications to maintain health outcomes without medical assistance.
How Noom Med Works
Noom Med is accessible to patients with a BMI of 30 or higher or greater than or equal to 27 with one or more weight-related medical conditions. Patients receive a health evaluation by a board-certified physician or a physician-supervised nurse practitioner, and complete comprehensive lab work. A clinician works with the patient via video visit to create an individualized care plan specific to the patient’s biology, concerns, and overall health goals. Noom Med follows strict, physician-created protocols, and only patients who are clinically appropriate are prescribed medication. The complete plan is then delivered through Noom’s best-in-class mobile app, complete with interactive patient education, a psychology-based curriculum, and a suite of comprehensive nutrition and exercise tools. Once patients achieve their weight goals, they can then begin the process of weaning off medication to continue maintaining weight loss via newly-learned habits and behaviors.
“Weight maintenance is entirely possible even though current data shows weight regain may occur once stopping a GLP-1,” said Noom’s Chief of Medicine, Linda Anegawa, MD, MS, FACP, a physician board certified in Obesity Medicine and Internal Medicine. “Medications alone won’t power maintenance; only sustained lifestyle changes will drive the long-term improvements in craving pathways along with improvements in insulin resistance that comes with combined use of GLP-1s and behavioral interventions. Together, these can literally rewire the brain over time.”
Critical Cost Management
For those patients receiving GLP-1 medication, the costs of covering their treatment can be high — as much as $1,500 per employee/member, per month — adding millions of dollars in costs to employers and payers. The demand for this treatment is enormous and will continue — Morning Consult reported that five in 10 U.S. adults who have heard of GLP-1s are interested in trying them1, and according to HR Executive, if just half of those eligible were to seek out GLP-1s for weight loss, it would increase total costs for employers/payers to $840 per employee/member per year2.
“Nearly half of the working population will suffer from obesity by 2030, and with that comes a tsunami of costs to employers and payers — not just from GLP-1s, but the costs associated with other chronic conditions that come with weight gain,” said Geoff Cook, CEO of Noom. “These costs are simply unsustainable. We’ve heard loud and clear the demand for a holistic solution that offers not only medical treatment for those with obesity, but also the behavioral change necessary to enable tapering of the medication to reverse the trends in weight gain in a sustainable, cost-effective way.”
Noom Med ensures employers and payers are able to optimize outcomes at an affordable cost via:
- A stepped care model: Noom’s unique care model pairs a broad spectrum of care with personalized support that’s tailored to each member’s unique biology and lifestyle. Members are guided to the right care at the right time — only stepping up to medication to match the appropriate level of investment for the best health outcome.
- A world-class behavior change curriculum: Our psychology-based program has guided millions toward healthy, lasting habits. 42% of members with obesity who lost at least 10% of their body weight kept it off for two years after using Noom.
- Performance-based pricing based on outcomes that matter, including initial weight lost and maintained weight loss after medication.
A Complete Metabolic Solution for Total Population Health
By adding Noom Med to the Noom for Work portfolio, employers and payers now have access to a comprehensive and customizable solution to address the nearly 75% of adults with pre-obesity or obesity. And the power of Noom’s brand awareness ensures strong employee adoption, which averages 25%, and for some employers as high as 80%.
Cook summarized, “Noom delivers a unique offering that no other company can match — a proven behavior change program that can go beyond weight loss to the treatment of obesity and long-term weight maintenance, independent of medical assistance, to truly reverse the obesity trend in the US and relieve the downward cost pressures our clients face today.”
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