Medical Weight Loss
Medical Weight Loss
Overweight and obese patients are a common sight in doctors offices. The war on weight has barely begun, mainly because physicians have lacked the techniques and reimbursements to make this successful in their practice.
Patients who are overweight are at increased risk of many comorbidities and include many diabetics and prediabetics. Many patients are sedentary and have poor diets and lack the motivation or understanding of how to successfully change.
Our Medical Weight Loss program is designed to give a practice everything they need to make weight loss a successful part of their business – in terms of patient outcomes and revenue. Many practices want to run weight loss in their practice but do not have the processes to be successful or have been asked to spend thousands of dollars to sign up in a franchise style model.
Our program provides the practice with an achievable model that secures the practice bottom line and will see a ROI within the first month of the services.
Most practices would expect that 35-50% or more of their patients are overweight or obese and could benefit from medical weight loss without the need for surgery. The patients you need to make this a successful piece of your business are already there.
How Does it Work?
The program follows a 5 step process where the practice is fully trained in implementation and management. The 5 steps are:
- Initial screening
- Behavioral Counselling
- Meal replacement
- Pharmacy (optional)
- Maintenance
The initial screening is done in companion with a set of Bioimpedance scales that weight the patient, provide a BMI and a full body composition analysis. The initial weigh in also provides a 4 page report that shows fat distribution in the body, health risks and offers a range of plans that the patient can commit to support sustained weight loss. These plans will also provide a 6 week predicted weight loss that the patient could realistically achieve based on the program they choose. This process fulfills the requirements of Quality Measures for obesity screening with a follow up plan.
The second step covers behavioral counselling. The practice and patient have access to dedicated portals that provide all the information they need for this step to be successful. The counselling is covered in over 40 modules across 9 different categories, addressing the root cause of challenges the patient has with losing weight. This area has routinely been difficult for physicians but our counselling provides the support tools that both physician and the patient need.
This step ties in with patient accountability. Accountability is aided through a set of Bluetooth enabled scales that the patient can purchase and take home. The scales remind the patient to weigh in and help track activity and other information back to the practice. This information can be used for Remote Patient Monitoring or just to support accountability.
The third component is meal replacements. The practice stocks temperature stable product that they can sell to the patient. Sometimes the food may even be covered by insurance. The meals are designed to provide satiety and to taste good for high patient acceptance. The choice of caloric diet will depend on how aggressively the patient wants to approach their weight loss. There is a profit margin in the meals for the practice and restocking is done simply through the physician portal.
The fourth component covers medications the patient may benefit from. This is optional for the physician and the patient and is not needed for this program to be successful. The practice can also offer added injections include vitamin B and Lipoprotein injections. These support the patient nutritionally and help them to feel better.
The final step covers maintenance. The patient scales help track ongoing progress with weight loss plans and counselling tapered to patient needs. This program routinely sees patients lose 11% of their weight in the first 12 weeks and long-term studies have shown that they keep it off at an average of 12% over 12 months.
Purchase requirements include the Bioimpedance scale, patient scales, meal replacements then a monthly subscription for the technology component that ties the program together.
The program helps tick several quality measures to help doctors with the MACRA/MIPS scoring.
Practice Benefits
The patient becomes engaged in a complete medical weight loss solution that addresses one of the most challenging areas for them – their behavior. By addressing behaviors, providing support and accountability, the patients chance of success increases. Patients will become happier, more confident and have improved outcomes for disease states that would have otherwise progressed with further complications.
Practice Benefits
An all-encompassing, systemized approach to patient weight loss done in a way that is reimbursable and achieves quality measures. Mid-level and other staff can be used for various aspects of the program to preserve physician time and maximize revenue. A single patient can easily generate in excess of $2,000 per year. For many practices, the weight loss program has become a significant part of their business. This program sources insurance, Medicare and cash-based revenue.
How to Get Started
If you are interested in finding out more about this solution, simply schedule a time for a 30-minute webinar which will give you the opportunity to review the program and it’s offer in more detail as well as ask questions.
Complete the form below with your interest in this solution and we will have someone contact you.
