The Rise of Weight Loss Medications: A Healthcare Trend with Dr. James Wantuck, the Associate Chief Medical Officer at Accolade

[00:00:00] Hey everybody, Saul Marquez with the Health Matters podcast. I want to welcome you back to

[00:00:13] another episode here from Las Vegas Convention Center at the Health 2023 meeting. I have

[00:00:20] Dr. James Wantuck with us. He is the associate chief medical officer at Accolade. Dr. Wantuck

[00:00:28] manages a large growing group of physicians, therapists and clinical operations staff while

[00:00:33] working with patients daily. He's a board certified internal medicine physician who

[00:00:37] co-founded Plush Care in 2015 and grew it to over 200 physicians offering high quality,

[00:00:44] accessible direct to consumer virtual care. James, thanks for joining me today. Super

[00:00:49] happy to be here. This is great. And really just before we dive into the work you guys are

[00:00:55] doing at Accolade. Talk to us a little bit about what inspires your work in healthcare. It's been

[00:01:00] a long road. Medical training takes a while and my journey started earlier than that. I think I got

[00:01:06] in the medicine growing up. My father had a bunch of operations. He thought that doctors doing it

[00:01:13] were just really cool. He just was so impressed with what they could do for him. And I kind of

[00:01:18] latched on to that. And obviously did well in school. Thought that was the right path for

[00:01:24] me. And I wanted to help people and I wanted to help people in a big way. And I think I knew from

[00:01:29] early on in my medical training that I wasn't just going to be out there. It's a bad thing, but I

[00:01:35] wasn't solely going to be a clinician seeing one patient at a time. I really wanted to help people

[00:01:41] in a bigger sense. Love that. Thanks for sharing that such an inspiring story with your dad and everything

[00:01:48] worked out. And then you took it. And now you've taken it to the next level so you created a

[00:01:53] company. And now you're with accolade going beyond the bedside. A hot topic in healthcare today is

[00:02:00] the rising popularity of weight management medication. You in particular, you helped design accolades

[00:02:06] clinical protocol for weight management to support both employer and consumer members. What are

[00:02:11] you hearing currently from employers and HR leaders on this topic? Everyone's talking. All right. If

[00:02:17] you're out on the show floor here at Health, everyone is talking about GLP ones or large language

[00:02:23] learning models. Those are the two topics that I'm seeing out there. Employers are talking about

[00:02:28] it too because what they're seeing is that their employees want these. Their employees are adopting

[00:02:33] these and it's costing them a lot of money. We just did a very large survey at accolade of over 500 HR

[00:02:42] leaders and we found that 80% of them, nearly 80% of them thought that their employees would be

[00:02:49] really interested in GLP ones yet only 25% of them actually cover these medicine on their plan.

[00:02:57] So there's a big gap there obviously people are after these people are interested. They obviously

[00:03:02] people want to lose weight. But right now a lot of plans aren't covering them. Interestingly,

[00:03:08] of the 25% who do cover them, 99% of them say they're going to keep covering them.

[00:03:15] That's a pretty big deal. To me that says it's working. It's working or the demand is so strong

[00:03:21] that people feel like this has to be a part of their health plan and it becomes really a recruitment

[00:03:27] tool, a retention mechanism. I think it absolutely is and you see that right. If you talk to

[00:03:33] patients, they'll tell you I'm not going to leave my employer. I can't lose coverage for this drug.

[00:03:38] This life in many cases, a life changing drug. The numbers are compelling and really cool that

[00:03:44] you guys actually went out and surveyed these HR leaders on a topic that's so key. That's what I

[00:03:51] really had a chance to get to know accolade and the work you guys do very much data driven in

[00:03:56] the work that you guys do, the customers that you serve. Why is the doctor patient relationship

[00:04:01] crucial when it comes to caring for patients, including designing a weight management program

[00:04:07] that works for their individual needs? These GOP ones are driving this trend but they don't work alone.

[00:04:14] They're certainly close to magic, but they're not magic and so you need a comprehensive

[00:04:21] program and comprehensive care to really get the most out of them and every patient you see is

[00:04:26] a little bit different. Some it's more the genetics, some it's behavioral, some it's the setting

[00:04:31] that they live in access to certain foods all those different things and everyone has a different

[00:04:36] balance and so you want a physician on your side who's going to take all those things into account

[00:04:42] and then also help you manage the rest of your holistic health. You don't want to lose

[00:04:46] 100 pounds of isolation because it's going to affect every other part of your body right?

[00:04:50] They're joint disease, your blood pressure, your cholesterol etc. So I think you want someone

[00:04:55] to really smart on your team and that's what we offer. That's awesome. When an organization is able

[00:05:00] to hire in a way that represents the population having a physician, slash entrepreneur like yourself

[00:05:08] that could connect the dots and help deliver these types of programs, I find you get the best results

[00:05:14] and so really appreciate your thoughts on that. On the weight management front amid the

[00:05:19] current medication shortage, how are accolade and plush care managing the rise in demand for

[00:05:25] GLP1 weight loss medications with employers and patients? I think our ultimate job is to help

[00:05:32] the person standing in front of us or virtually appearing in front of us in this case

[00:05:37] and sometimes that involves prescribing a medication that we know is covered or one that

[00:05:43] is not ideal but we know it's in supply in their local pharmacy. Sometimes it involves

[00:05:48] calling up 10 pharmacies and tracking down the medicine, working with the the PBM to get the

[00:05:53] prior author proved. We have to do something slightly different for every patient and I think

[00:05:59] we have a care team on people's side that help them get that done. That's great. Is there that

[00:06:06] big of a shortage right now that maybe you have the ration of what's going on? There absolutely is.

[00:06:12] Almost every patient that we see is having some access issue related to the shortage.

[00:06:18] It's luck at the draw right? If your local pharmacy retail pharmacy has the drug in stock,

[00:06:23] you can be happy about that because not many people are finding it on the first try

[00:06:28] but we hear that things are going to get better and I'm sure pharma is

[00:06:32] working on ramping up their manufacturing as quickly as they possibly can because these drugs are

[00:06:38] going to be a money maker for them. They're a hot commodity and fascinating and at the end of the day

[00:06:43] it's about responsiveness right? Responsiveness to what the market gives us and being able to help

[00:06:49] patients navigate better care. I think that's right these are a perfect example where the process

[00:06:55] isn't easy. It's certainly not as easy as it should be. Healthcare is complicated

[00:07:01] and you know most people don't think about it until they need it and so hopefully you come to us

[00:07:06] and we help you figure out the process. Everything from seeing the doctor to getting the prescription

[00:07:12] to paying for it. That's fantastic. This has been fascinating James. If you wanted to leave

[00:07:18] the listeners with a call to action, what would you leave them? I have to say you have to try

[00:07:24] our service. Anyone can try it. You don't have to be an accolade customer to sign up. It's

[00:07:28] available to consumers too. So if you're ever in need of a doctor visit let's say maybe you're

[00:07:32] visiting Las Vegas. You happen to get sick. We're here for you from your hotel room so I would say

[00:07:38] that's the best call to action that I could go for. And how can people engage with the platform?

[00:07:43] You can go to the app store download the app. Love it. And folks there you have it. Dr. James

[00:07:49] Wan Tuk for ways to get in touch with them as well as ways to check out the app. Go into the show

[00:07:55] notes where you'll be able to just click and it'll take you directly to that. So make sure you take

[00:08:00] action on the opportunity to engage. James, thanks for your time today. Thank you. Good to be here.