Known for free food samples, cheap hot dogs, pizza and chicken bakes, Costco will be helping its members lose weight.
Through its partnership with Sesame, a direct-to-consumer health care marketplace, the membership warehouse will offer prescriptions for GLP-1 weight loss drugs.
Costco partnered with Sesame last year, offering members a $29 virtual checkup. It’s intended to help people who are uninsured or people who have high deductibles and pay in cash, CBS News reported. Sesame does not accept health insurance.
Sesame also offers virtual mental health treatments for $79 an appointment and standard lab panels with a follow-up consultation for $72, USA Today reported.
Over the months since the two companies joined forces, Sesame’s co-founder, Michael Botta, said its providers frequently got questions about the popular weight loss programs, CNN reported.
“It wasn’t what we initially thought would make sense to offer for Costco members who were coming to Sesame,” Botta told CNN. “But we realized pretty quickly, just by looking at what people were curious about, that there was a clear unmet need here.”
On Tuesday, Costco and Sesame introduced a three-month program that starts with a video consultation with a weight loss doctor or specialist, a prescription for GLP-1 or other weight loss medication, and support if needed via unlimited messages and help from a health care provider.
The program costs $179 plus the cost of the medications, which can be Ozempic or Wegovy — both injectable semaglutides — or other oral weight-loss drugs.
Sesame said the GLP-1s can be between $950 and $1,600 a month, which may not be covered by insurance.
In three months, patients may be able to lose 5% of their body weight, 10% in six months and 15% over a year, CNN reported.
For more information, visit CostcoWeightLoss.com.
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