Membership warehouse grocery store Costco is set to launch a weight loss program.
The company announced it will offer the service to its customers through the healthcare marketplace Sesame.
“We are witnessing important innovations in medically supervised weight loss,” said David Goldhill, Sesame's co-founder and CEO. “Sesame’s unique model allows us not only to make high-quality specialty care like weight loss much more accessible and affordable but also to empower clinicians to create care plans that are specific to − and appropriate for − each individual patient.”
The weight-loss program will be available on April 2 at $179 every three months. Customers will get access to clinical consultations, individualized treatment programs, and nutritional guides.
This is the second major partnership between Costco and Sesame.
In 2023, the grocery chain began offering primary care physician visits for $29 through the healthcare marketplace. Customers could also attend mental health therapy for $79 per session or get a standard lab panel and virtual follow-up consultation for $72. Costco members can also get 10% off other Sesame services, including in-person appointments.
“Costco is following a similar path to many other retailers as well as health insurers aiming to cut healthcare costs,” reports Kiplinger. “These include Walgreens, which recently expanded further into value-based healthcare by announcing a partnership with Pearl Health. Pearl Health is a startup technology firm focused on primary care physicians transitioning away from fee-for-service compensation to value-based payments with the aim of reducing the total cost of care.”
Costco is widely popular across the world. Just over 127 million people had memberships in 2023.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 41.9% of adults in the United States were obese in 2017. Roughly 39.8% of adults ages 20 to 39 are obese as are 44.3% of adults ages 40 to 59 and 41.5% of adults ages 60 or older.
“From 1999–2000 through 2017–March 2020, US obesity prevalence increased from 30.5% to 41.9%,” reports the CDC. “During the same time, the prevalence of severe obesity increased from 4.7% to 9.2%.”
In 2022, data from the CDC indicated that one in every five adults were obese. Louisiana, Oklahoma, and West Virginia all had obesity rates of 40% or greater. Another 19 states had obesity rates between 35% or 40%.
