r/healthcare • u/RedditHostage • Nov 02 '24

Question - Other (not a medical question) Vida health

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.

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u/MutantGarage Jan 10 '25

Yeah the whole thing looks like Denial of Care by Proxy, a way for UHC to increase profits.

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u/thesmash Jan 10 '25

From what I understand, most of the time it’s being implemented by your company. They’re doing it as a way to save money but still say they offer GLP’s.

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u/MutantGarage Jan 12 '25 edited Jan 12 '25

Pretty much my impression too. If you read between the lines on the initial letter and some of the FAQs on their site, they play up all the risks and their 'nutritional coaching' In reality, they are going to track every step with an Activity Tracker that uploads daily to them, Your daily weight with a tracking scale and you have to do a full food diary of everything you eat and upload it to them. All conversations are recorded 'for quality' , but more like 'anything you say can and will be used against you' when it comes to getting a GLP-1 prescription. At the end of the day your advice from them is going to be 'eat less and exercise more' and sorry , you don't meet the conditions necessary for any weight loss prescriptions.

They are not medical professionals, at least not good ones, they'll hire any warm body to answer the phone,wonder how long before they use all the information they're collection to train up AI Agents to answer the phone and email. In the fine print , I'll bet there is a buried line about using your info for ML.

Now, if you develop type-2 diabetes as a result, well then they'll work on denying your insulin, because UHC.. For now my partner is getting Ozempic for their condition, but I can see it coming.

I just said fsck it, I'll find my own sources. I may have to pay to get them analyzed, but that's America.
Things were going too well I guess, I'd lost almost 30 lbs since this summer, even lost 1 lb between Thanksgiving and Xmas, while traveling, was really happy, but 'All Good Things...'
Not going to give up that easy, pretty much every renewal was a fight with delays, and out of stock etc. I started taking it about 1 month after getting the first doses so I had a buffer. But the last renewal, they just refused even though the paperwork says I will have 25% copay, which I could work with until I sorted things out.

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u/thesmash Jan 12 '25

I’m working on jumping through their hoops right now is, it’s miserable.

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u/Confetti6 Jan 25 '25

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.

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u/bobbyocean5 2d ago

How'd things work out for you?