Dive Brief:
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Novant Health recently opened a clinic in Greensboro, North Carolina, dedicated to bariatric weight loss, the Triad Business Journal reported.
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Despite public health campaigns, the number of obese patients is increasing steadily, according to a 2016 report by Mordor Intelligence.
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The bariatric surgery market is large and growing, with projections of a North American market valued at nearly $1.2 billion by 2021, the report states.
Dive Insight:
Novant Health is among the latest examples of weight loss clinics that specialize in bariatric medicine. Although targeted to a very specific group of patients (adults who are extremely obese), bariatric surgery has become well known. And the number of people eligible for the surgery is increasing.
Bariatric weight loss has some good selling points: it’s the only reliable method of substantial, long-term weight loss that the medical field has to offer so far. Patients benefit not only in terms of general weight loss, but by experiencing other major health improvements. And health insurers often cover it, because obesity-related health conditions like type 2 diabetes are expensive. In fact, a 2008 study estimated third-party payers recover the expense of bariatric surgery for a patient in three to four years due to decreases in the individual’s other medical expenses.
However, high-deductible health plans mean financial obstacles for some patients. And approximately three-quarters of consumers in a recent survey did not know whether their health plan covered bariatric services at all. Awareness is a problem that can be remedied. The bigger question is the extent to which insurers will continue to cover these services, and how many patients will be able to afford their copayments for the screening evaluations, nutritional counseling, psychological assessments, surgery, post-surgical care and follow-up visits that reputable physicians require.