Medicare and Medicaid open coverage of anti-obesity drugs for heart patients

The Cen­ters for Medicare and Med­ic­aid Ser­vices said that an­ti-obe­si­ty drugs should be cov­ered for pa­tients get­ting them for ad­di­tion­al med­ical con­di­tions, a move that could mean­ing­ful­ly ex­pand ac­cess for pa­tients in the US gov­ern­ment health pro­grams.

A CMS spokesper­son told End­points News that the cen­ters have is­sued guid­ance to Medicare Part D plans stat­ing that an­ti-obe­si­ty med­ica­tions with FDA ap­proval for an ad­di­tion­al med­ical­ly ac­cept­ed in­di­ca­tion, such as re­duc­ing the risk of ma­jor car­dio­vas­cu­lar events, can be cov­ered for that use.

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