Posts on Demand Elimination and the technologies that prevent illness, injury, and the need for healthcare encounters.
Every published post with this tag.
GLP-1 use rose more than 140% from 2022 to 2024 while bariatric surgery volumes fell 34.1%, per new JAMA Surgery article. Classic Demand Elimination — and more than 90% of eligible patients still received neither treatment.
Forty-five of 49 telehealth sites prescribed a GLP-1 to a fake patient based on a web form and an upper-body photo. The prescription requirement doesn’t exist in practice. Given a benign 20-year safety record and a new FDA pathway for OTC drugs that need screening, it may be time to stop pretending otherwise.
Happy to discuss healthcare growth, primary care’s decline, consumer health tech, and self-driving cars with the very well-informed Scott Becker, in this episode of Becker’s Healthcare Podcast.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts just posted a $400 million loss — the worst in their history. The culprit? GLP-1 medications that could eventually save insurers billions. The costs hit today, the savings arrive years later, and health systems are caught in the middle.
GLP-1 medications may do far more than treat diabetes or reduce weight. If they substantially cut obesity and metabolic disease, they could trigger the first large-scale decline in healthcare demand seen in the modern era. This piece explores how earlier demand shocks reshaped medicine, why GLP-1s pose a similar challenge for chronic-disease–based service lines, and what hospitals must do now to prepare for a world with fewer cardiometabolic patients.
Digital coaches are taking prevention where healthcare and public health can’t reach — into daily life. Activity trackers like Apple Watch, Fitbit, and Garmin now deliver personalized, continuous feedback at global scale, turning prevention into a business that keeps people healthier — and needing healthcare less.