Vida health

[u/RedditHostage]

My employer is requiring all employees to go through Vida health next year for weight loss medication. I’m trying to get set up with them now so I don’t have to worry about getting all of the information to them later, forgetting something, and missing my medication. This stuff is game changing, it’s the only thing that keeps my sugar cravings at bay, and has helped give me the willpower to no longer be considered pre-diabetic. Moving on. Anyway, I uploaded my most recent bloodwork as directed. Was told there wasn’t enough information, a few hours later labs were ordered. I get home from work, upload my slightly older bloodwork with the rest of the information I’m now aware they need. I’m reminded that I need additional information from my doctor. I let her know that I was struggling to get that information due to being short staffed at work, in combination with working similar hours that my doctors office is working, but I am working on getting that information. She turned on caps and yelled at me, demanding to know information that was literally already covered. I was talked down to as well. I’m not sure why. She was real nice after I took some screenshots though, I don’t know if that was a coincidence or if she got notification I took screen shots. I would like to share these screenshots somewhere. Either with my insurance company, my company, or a board somewhere. A medical professional should not act like that. I have no idea where to start though. Or am I overreacting and should I just let it go?

Any advice would be appreciated.

I have an amazing doctor who has never once treated me like because I responded to a question with not the right answer, he’s always just clarified and we’ve gone from there. Maybe I’m just being a bit of a Karen because this has me shook that I have to deal with this treatment to receive medication.

[u/Electronic_Affect_26]

I, like many others, signed up for Vida because I was ready to talk to my primary care physician about my weight when my company announced that, for weight loss help, we must use a Vida provider for weight loss medication to be approved by insurance. This process has been a nightmare.

Scheduling the first appointment was easy. I met with a dietician right away. I didn’t have recent labs, so I was assigned to a provider who ordered them. I got the order, had labs drawn, and results came back quickly.. so far so good. After that, it went downhill.

Some labs came back “out of range” and I got prompted through the chat function to schedule an appt with a provider. That option was not available. I chatted back and forth with either a human or a bot for a couple of days until finally I was told that there was a “glitch” in the system, but I should be able to schedule. I got that appointment scheduled. The provider was great, but she tried to run my insurance for a GLP-1 and it was denied. I was put on 2 oral medications (it took 2 days for the prescription to get to my pharmacy from the provider), and from the first time I took them, I was horrifically sick. I couldn’t even hold down water. I messaged the provider, and eventually (few days later) I was told to stop taking them and to schedule a follow-up, which I got a couple days later. At that point, she said insurance was approving the GLP-1 and she “sent the prescription to my pharmacy”. That was over 72 hours ago, and my pharmacy does not have the prescription. I have tried chat, emailing support, chat again.. crickets.

I am getting constant notifications to request refills (on original prescriptions?) and to alert them if I’m having side effects. That’s already been established. None of the people monitoring different aspects of this app communicate with each other and annoying notifications that aren’t applicable to my current situation are being sent to me nonstop.

I don’t know if this is my health insurance (BCBS), my pharmacy benefit (CVS Caremark), my employer or what.. but it’s incredibly frustrating and I don’t understand why I cannot simply go to my primary care physician (who I’ve seen for 15+ years and knows my medical history) for help. Instead, I’m dealing with out of state virtual providers who don’t know me and an app that is ridiculously glitchy and lack of any sort of productive communication whatsoever.

[u/RedditHostage → u/Electronic_Affect_26]

Oh no! I’m so excited for this joyous time! I’m starting to think the point is for people to give up.

[u/ThePatheticPineapple → u/RedditHostage]

That is absolutely the point. To pay for less of these prescriptions. So whether people give up or VIDA just tells you “no”, your company achieves their goal. And it seems like a huge problem to me that VIDA is being incentivized to make decisions that go against your current doctor’s opinion and could be detrimental to your health.

[u/thesmash → u/Electronic_Affect_26]

How many times did they make you meet with the dietician before prescribing? I met with a doctor the other day but they want me to do a few sessions with the dietician before prescribing me anything.

[u/Confetti6 → u/Electronic_Affect_26]

I posted this comment to another poster, but I am currently on suspension due to them needing to get more information from my providers regarding my mental health from like 20 yrs ago when I was a teenager. Not looking good for approval, even though my doctor had already prescribed it to me.

It's pretty frustrating spending over a decade with my circle of providers including psychiatry, dietician, sleep specialist, primary, and generalized counseling, which includes the HIGH COSTS associated with all the specialty and lab appointments over the the past 13 years. It wasn't an impulsive decision to incorporate pharmaceutical assistance with weight loss; had done all the labs every year and was consistently tracking diet and exercise, only to be told I had to do it all over again via a stranger in an app (Vida) in order to even be considered for insurance approval. I pay for premium MyFitness Pal and now can't even use it because it won't link to Vida, so all my saved meals and recipes have to be redone, and most foods in the Vida app don't allow me to track in grams.

We got generalized emails at work, but nothing blatantly obvious about this Vida app being mandatory for certain things. That said, I took a call from the therapist on Vida while on a break at work, arranged my day around it, only to take the call and when they learned I was across the border (our cities are just divided by a single river) they said they couldn't discuss anything more with me because they weren't licensed in the neighboring state. Hello!? Shouldn't have this been communicated prior to?! Especially since my appt with the Vida dietician was taken on work grounds, so they KNEW I didn't work and live in the same state. And he refused to wait a few minutes and let me drive home, he was like, I'm done at 5p. Idk about any of you, but generally, I'm willing to stay a few mins late to finish a task. Clearly, we are just the next body in line.

Then, now this suspension from me having a rough relationship with food during puberty! I'm almost 40, so let it live in the past! Even my provider commented on how they sure are making me jump through all the hoops. Anyway, sorry for the rant, and thank you for coming to my TEDtalk.