A guide to care choices
Explore the evidenceCost cards
Compare quotes only after you know what each includes. Ask for a written total, the price after any offer, and the terms for leaving.
Outside insurance
Ask whether the quote is for medicine alone or for care as well.
Before an insurance plan begins to pay, you must cover an amount called the deductible. An out-of-pocket limit is its cap on your covered spending.
Cash payments under maker offers checked September 26, 2026 did not count toward insurance deductibles or yearly out-of-pocket limits.
Through a plan
To ask about coverage, tell your plan which condition is being treated and identify the proposed medicine precisely.
Medicare is the federal health insurance program.
On September 26, 2026, Medicare coverage for uses such as diabetes remained subject to advance approval and inclusion on the plan’s medicine list.
With advance approval, the plan gives its agreement to payment before you have the prescription filled.
As of September 26, 2026, semaglutide (Wegovy) was a medicine approved for weight loss in certain patients.
$149 was the starting monthly cash price for semaglutide (Wegovy) tablets on the U.S. government’s page checked September 26, 2026.
$299 was the starting monthly cash price for tirzepatide (Zepbound) on that government site, checked September 26, 2026.
The prices checked September 26, 2026 were for the lowest doses, meaning the smallest amounts of medicine taken at a time.
Treat them as examples for weight-care medicines. Ask for the price of the medicine and amount proposed for you.
A list price is the published figure from the drug’s maker.
A copay is the part you pay when your plan covers the medicine. A cash offer is outside that coverage.
On September 26, 2026, an insured copay differed from a government-program price, a maker’s list price, an offer paid in cash, and a discount-card price.
Ask which figure a quote uses.
Read the government’s cash-price directorySeveral makers’ cash offers and savings cards had an expiry of December 31, 2026 in the terms reviewed September 26, 2026.
Ask which price follows an offer and when it can change. Ask what payment stops when you cancel.
A sample of national online weight-care services mostly charged monthly fees, with medicine billed apart, as of September 26, 2026.
Ask whether you pay for a visit or a membership, and what that payment includes.
Ask which tests are needed, what each costs, and whether a separate lab will send a bill.
As of September 26, 2026, routine Medicare drug coverage still excluded medicines used for weight loss.
On September 26, 2026, certain medicines for weight loss fell within a separate temporary Medicare program, the GLP-1 Bridge.
Ask your doctor about the Bridge program if your medicine is being prescribed for weight loss.
People who qualified paid $50 for a month’s medicine through the Bridge, under terms checked September 26, 2026.
The Bridge paid separately from the usual Medicare drug-plan system.
Possible coverage is not a guarantee that your plan will pay.
The terms checked September 26, 2026 scheduled the Medicare program to begin July 1, 2026 and end December 31, 2027.
Under terms checked September 26, 2026, you needed to be at least 18 and have qualifying Medicare drug coverage.
Eligibility depended on how your weight compared with your height; in some cases, other health conditions mattered too.
The Bridge excluded patients who had type 2 diabetes, since ordinary Medicare drug coverage handled their treatment.
Other exclusions also applied, including getting one of these medicines through a Medicare drug plan earlier in 2026.
Ask your doctor to check the full requirements for you, including the kind of Medicare plan you have.
Under the September 26, 2026 terms, the included forms were Wegovy (semaglutide) as shots or tablets; Foundayo (orforglipron) as tablets; and Zepbound (tirzepatide) using KwikPen.
These are medicine names; KwikPen is the name of an injection pen.
Zepbound in other pens or small bottles was not included.
You needed a prescription and approval from the program before getting the medicine.
Ask your doctor how to send the Bridge request, rather than treating its price as your price before approval.
Read Medicare’s weight-medicine coverage page