Affordable GLP-1 Medications: A Game-Changer for Weight Management with Chris Spears from OrderlyMeds

#002 In this episode of Healthcare Wayfinders, we sit down with Chris Spears, founder and CEO of OrderlyMeds, to explore the transformative impact of GLP-1 medications on weight management and overall health. Chris shares his inspiring personal journey, which led him to create a company dedicated to providing affordable and accessible solutions for thousands of people. Learn how OrderlyMeds combines innovative healthcare delivery with supportive services to ensure lasting success for their patients. Whether you’re curious about GLP-1s or considering them as part of your healthcare journey, this episode is packed with insights you won’t want to miss.

With the OrderlyMeds SimpleStart program, you can see how simple it is to start a lasting health journey in just 3 months! For just $99/month, our SimpleStart 3-month program for compounded Semaglutide is the easiest and most supported way to weigh less, for less. 

Take the first step towards a healthier you with OrderlyMeds. 

About OrderlyMeds

OrderlyMeds provides personalized support and comprehensive care for GLP-1 weight loss treatments. With OrderlyMeds, you’ll get transparent pricing and a hassle-free online experience so you can focus on your goals.

OrderlyMeds believes in a holistic approach to wellness, that’s why they offer mental health therapy, nutrition resources and fitness support to all customers. These end-to-end services make the weight loss journey more sustainable and more effective overall.

About the Founder

Chris Spears is a seasoned Marketing Technologist dedicated to revolutionizing the wellness industry by integrating Medication, HealthTech, Mental Health, Nutrition, and Fitness into a cohesive global brand. With a focus on leveraging cutting-edge technology and holistic health principles, he aims to create accessible, personalized wellness solutions that empower people to achieve their health goals and improve their quality of life.

Contact the Healthcare Wayfinders Podcast

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Special Thanks to:

• Seth Aten who produces the podcast.
• Grassroots Labs for sponsoring the show.

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Transcript

Zach Aten: [00:00:00] Hey friends, and welcome back to the Healthcare Wayfinders podcast today. I'm excited to share an inspiring conversation with Chris Spears, founder and CEO of orderly meds. First, Chris shares his personal journey that led him to create OrderlyMeds after a life changing health crisis. Then we dive into how his company is helping thousands of people access affordable and effective GLP-1 medications for weight management and better health, along with supportive services that they offer to ensure lasting success.

If you or someone you know is interested in learning more about GLP-1s to see if they might be a useful tool for you on your healthcare journey, you're going to want to listen to this episode. Let's jump in.

All right, Chris. Hey, thank you so much for coming on the Healthcare Wayfinders podcast. Really appreciate you and the work that you're doing at Orderly Meds. Before we jump into it, why don't you kind of introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about OrderlyMeds.

Christ Spears: Zach, thanks for having me. I'm Chris Spears, founder and CEO [00:01:00] over at Worldly Meds. Thanks, Chris. We are, I guess, 15 months into this adventure and, it's a personal journey for me. I got very sick in 2022 and at the end of 2022. and ended up in the ICU. They needed to transfuse about four and a half pints of blood.

Like I was on the the not long for this world list. And at the end of the day, it was a couple of ulcers, you know, an exciting bout of COVID all kind of coming together at once. coming out of that, you know, my primary care physician said, Chris, you could stand to lose a little bit of weight.

So we're going to write you a prescription for Ozempic. And, you know, got that prescription went to the insurance company. And of course, they said, Chris, you're not a diabetic. We're not going to write you. Uh, we're not going to cover this medication for you. Um, then I went to the pharmacy and said, great.

You know, like, can I get a, you know, I have this prescription. Can I get the medication? And the pharmacy said, we haven't seen that med in 6 months. So, you know, keep calling in, you know, we'll, we'll let you know when it's available. And that led me down the rabbit hole that is compound pharmacies and [00:02:00] telemedicine.

And the nuance of compound law is if a patent holder can't keep up with the demand of. The medical community, compound pharmacies are allowed to create exact clones of this medication. So that's kind of what has enabled this whole boom and kind of the, the, the fun events you see all over the news about FDA and compound and, you know, uh, all that.

Anyway, the, the medication worked fantastic. I lost 50 pounds. My doctor was super happy. I'm, I'm, you know, this is almost two years later now. I'm still on the medication, you know, losing a little bit more weight, you know, every month. and overall, I ended up signing up with a group that I really didn't enjoy the customer experience, you know, so there was not a lot of support there was no wraparound services.

It was very much, here's your meds and don't talk to us again for 30 days until we need more meds. And, you know, so that led me to complain enough about it, that friends and family said, Chris, isn't this what you used to do for a living? Why don't you go start a business that delivers a better customer experience?

So in October of 23, we decided to go down [00:03:00] that path and, you know, we spent about two months building out the website and integrating in with all the right medical providers to cover all 50 states and pharmacies to cover all 50 states. And we launched in January with, with much fanfare. We had 17 patients.

I was one of them. One of my close friends was another one, you know, not, not a lot of spread outside of like the immediate friends and family. Since then it has grown significantly. we shipped 20, 000 vials in October. So we, we helped, you know, 20, 000 different people get, get on this journey or, or stay on this journey.

You know, in a meaningful way and, and it's super rewarding. Cause our Facebook community is, you know, thousands of people posting how this has changed their life, the events that they get to do, chasing their kids and grandkids, the travel they're doing. So it's been a very interesting and very fulfilling business, even if it is a little bit too much work over the last last 15 months,

Zach Aten: Yeah, that is awesome. That's a super cool story. for just somebody who isn't, let's say, they're not familiar with kind of this whole thing that's been going on. The [00:04:00] medications that you guys prescribe are GLP-1s, right? Tell me a little bit about those and, what the history of that is.

Cause like I know my wife's a nurse practitioner in endocrinology practice and she works with diabetics. She's been prescribing these meds for seven to 10 years, something like this, but there's definitely been kind of a buzz in the last few years. Can you kind of talk a little bit about what's going on and how, what you guys are doing is, you know, helping to bring this to more people who are, Trying to live healthier lives.

Christ Spears: it's really interesting, right? I mean, the, a version of these medications have been around, I think, going on 20 years, right? There was a very early version called liraglutide that was done as a, in a pill format, that, you know, as a daily was primarily meant to help with diabetes. And, you know, I think it was about 3 years ago, 4 years ago, semaglutide, which would be kind of the next version.

Okay. Was released and as Ozempic and the big transformation there in the medication was they found a way to stabilize it so that it had a longer half life in your body and [00:05:00] therefore didn't need to be a daily pill and was significantly more efficient because it was injected versus ingested. and that's what kind of kicked off this whole boom, you know, the, the, the downside of it being so popular is that they have never been able to keep up with the medical community and the demand.

and that the price point is so high that insurance companies for the most part will cover it for type two diabetes only. And very few insurance companies are covering it for weight loss. And, and I mean, if you read some of the studies, there's like 10 other significant studies about the impact that these peptides have on the human body, like improved cardiovascular, you know, reduces heart disease, blood pressure, cures, cures or curbs addiction, all types of addiction.

you know, there, there's studies around rheumatoid arthritis. It's dementia, Alzheimer's, like it's just, it's kind of this phenomenal miracle drug, right? And then the next question is, yeah, but we don't know what the long-term side effects are, which isn't true because again, it's been in market for 20 years, just not in this [00:06:00] exact formulation.

So there, there have been people on these meds for a very long period of time. None of, you know, no significant, it didn't turn us all into zombies yet. So, you know, it's kind of my brother is a doctor. And every time we talk about it, I mean, he's got a new study that he's touting and kind of continues that it's this is a category that is going to be ubiquitous, you know, in the world.

Because of the impact it's going to have on health care and long term, you know, degenerating diseases that are associated with weight.

Zach Aten: Wow. So somebody norm, the normal process is, is they'd have some type of, or they get diagnosed with a chronic condition like diabetes and their doctor would prescribe this. What's the, how's the process now or like through you guys, um, and how are people benefiting from getting to use these drugs?

Christ Spears: Yeah, you know, with, with the advent and or not advent, but kind of the events that happened around, um, COVID, telemedicine laws changed in a, in enough of a way that. You know, you can [00:07:00] do the entire conversation over text message, right? You, you need to submit almost exactly the same information you would if you were checking in at a new doctor office.

We need to know all of your health history, all of your allergies, all of your medications. Family history, you know, what kind of activity do you have? Do you smoke? Do you drink? Like, again, like those patient intake forms you get frustrated with doing, you know, every time you sit down at your doctor's office from there that gets bundled up and we hand that off to a medical provider that is in the state that the patient is in.

Medical provider does a review, has a conversation with the patient about this condition or that surgery, answers any questions they have about the medication. you know, if they're medically ineligible for any reason, which there's a list of reasons that telemedicine for writing these prescriptions might not be the right outcome.

You know, it's, it's a refund and you don't continue down the path. But presuming that you are medically eligible, a prescription is written. It gets passed directly to a pharmacy that will drop [00:08:00] ship it to your house with cold packs and syringes and, you know, alcohol swabs and everything that you need to, to give the medication to yourself.

now, you know, the next big conversation is always like, I'm never going to give myself an injection, Chris, that's just not going to happen. I, it's kind of funny, like, you know, you hear that a lot and then you, you know, people give it a try. The, the, the needle is, is probably shorter than the end of my pinky, right?

It's a little insulin needle. It's absolutely tiny. you know, and, and it's a super easy injection and people get through the first one or watch a video or get on with one of our nurses and, you know, kind of get walked through it for the first dose. And then we never hear from them again, or, or we see posts about how easy that was and why, why they were, it took them, you know, they got the meds three weeks ago and they've been camping on them instead of actually using them.

And then they finally do it and they're like, Oh my gosh. What was I, you know, what was I afraid of? so yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's honestly, I think for some people, it's very surprising how easy it is, you know, and again, like, there are different classes of drugs, right? So, you know, this is a, class of drugs that doesn't have [00:09:00] symptoms that are, you know, going to create an addiction or, you know, harm you in a significant enough way that it has to be policed like testosterone or You know, any of the pain meds that are out there getting prescribed.

so yeah, a text based conversation, you know, from the, the, the point of entering your health history, your prescription, if you're eligible is written within 24 hours and the pharmacy is shipped within two days in a two day air kind of motion. So start to finish, it's like a five day process. If everything is going smoothly, frictionless,

Zach Aten: Very cool. That sounds super easy and convenient.

Christ Spears: frictionless access,

Zach Aten: Yeah, I love it. I love it. So somebody so who's like your ideal person who would use your service? Are there, I'm assuming they're not working with a provider now and they're looking for help losing weight or just kind of being healthier.

Have they been told they need to lose weight? Talk to me about who's like the ideal person this would help.

Christ Spears: Yeah. You know, there's, you know, I think your, your [00:10:00] traditional primary care physician, Isn't really aware of compounding for the most part, right? There's obviously exceptions. you know, so I, I think a lot of people end up getting going down the path that I did. Somebody wrote them a prescription for Ozempic and Mounjaro or Wegovy

And then the great Facebook who's listening to every conversation that has ever been had, you know, start serving them ads for the compounded version of these medications. And they find a service like ours. you know, the customers that are, I hate to say that there's like an ideal customer, but the population that we seem to service the most are the second half of life, right?

They're looking at this. Like, I have had a weight problem for the last 20, 30, 40 years. I'm looking at the, I'm over the hill, right? I'm a, I'm 45. I've just hit the hill point. Like maybe I'll see 90. That's my midway point, but you know, like they're, they're looking at how am I going to keep up with my kids?

How am I going to keep up with my grandkids? you know, what kind of retirement do I want to enjoy? You know, do I need to be able [00:11:00] to be up and walk around and kind of have a more active lifestyle so that I can enjoy retirement? and it's that group that wants to go from. I, what I would say is that it's not the vanity weight loss, right?

You, you don't show up and you're like, Hey, I need to lose five pounds before I go to the beach this summer, so I'm gonna, you know, sign up. This is, you know, I, I have made a conservative effort. I've tried nutrition, I've done Weight Watchers, I did Noom. I have, you know, three different gym memberships over the, over the last couple of years.

It all failed after the first two months of the new year. you know, and this is the option that helps them actually kind of combat all the food noise that's going on and, and lose the weight. You know, it is a longer term solution, right? You don't get on this and lose 40 pounds in a month, you get on this and lose 40 pounds over 12 months.

Zach Aten: Yeah. You just said a word that I've heard before, expand on a little bit, food noise.

Christ Spears: I'm pretty sure this was coined in this kind of category, but, if you've never experienced, right, it's kind of that thought of like, Oh, I'm not doing anything. I should go eat. Right, I, I need a snack. I, you know, whether you [00:12:00] base that on an oral fixation, stressing, like, you know, any, any of those categories where the impact of food on your body releases the chemicals in your brain that calms you down for a little while, food noise.

Right? So, so, kind of these medications. Basically eliminate that, you know, it, it kind of, it operates in two ways, right? One is that reduction in just random haphazard eating. and the second one is that it slows down the speed at which your body processes food. So you feel fuller longer right now that element of how this medication works is what leads to some people having medical complications.

. Right. They're not paying attention to their body and specifically what we really try to reinforce with our patients is when you're not eating as much and the only time you ever took in water was when you were sitting down for a meal. You need to find other times to drink water, right? Like hydration, hydration, hydration.

the majority of the problems they [00:13:00] get, you know, identified as major symptoms are related to dehydration and your body not actually being able to, to, to purge.

Zach Aten: Yeah. Okay. That's, that's interesting. I've definitely experienced food noise before, so, the idea that that could be silenced sounds really awesome. so one of the things I've heard is that sometimes people can get on GLP-1s and, not have good expectations.

and maybe not do some of the things that would, help make the process or experience better for them. you know, I got on your website and I can see that you guys provide, you know, kind of a, a full, uh, range of ancillary services to really help someone have the best experience on this. Can you talk a little bit about that?

You know, about the nutrition and, fitness and just, mental health aspect of, you know, if you're going to be on this for a long time, it's, and have good results and actually be healthier. What are the, the ancillary things that can help you with that?

Christ Spears: Yeah. And I mean, that was one of the reasons [00:14:00] that we started orderly was to provide all of those additional services. Right. So before we even launched, I was on the phone with better help saying a huge part of this is going to be your mental health, right. And your ability to access therapy and have somebody to talk to about.

You know, big transformations in your body, what to do with the stress or things that, you know, with food used to be how you calm yourself again. Like, what is your alternative? So you don't continue to keep those bad habits. you know, I, I think a lot of, you know, the audience, like, is not. You know, we're not gym rats, like, you know, like the idea of give me a workout program that is box jumps and squats.

It's like, man, I don't even know how to use a freestyle machine. Like, give me a program that is get up and be more active. Give me simple things that I can do around the house. So like designing fitness programs that are actually meeting individuals where they are in their own, their own journey. and nutrition is the same way, you know, like.

You think about like, okay, you're on these meds, great. Hey, you have a significantly reduced caloric intake or need for food. It can't be [00:15:00] bread, right? You need to go get protein. You need to go get the things that are going to make it so that all of your hair doesn't fall out. Cause you stopped eating, you know, you're, you're eating half as much, right?

Like there are the, what you eat drives how you feel on these meds. Even if you're losing weight. I can't just sit around and eat ice cream until I'm full and expect, you know, I'll lose the weight still because I'm not meeting as much, but I'm gonna have a lot of other impacts because I'm now not taking in the nutrients that I need to be to be healthy.

Um, so having all of those available to our patients in this journey, not only helps them kind of from setting expectations and getting started on the path the right way. But, you know, our longer term like goal with offering that is that you change your habits in a significant enough way that you are not permanently on these medications, right?

Like an ideal outcome is that you, you're here for a year or two years, whatever it takes, but then you've modified eating habits. You become a more active person. You've, you've resolved some of the mental challenges that were, that were causing these problems [00:16:00] and you can move into a phase where. People say, well, if I stopped taking the meds, I'm just going to gain all the weight back.

Zach Aten: Yeah.

Christ Spears: That's no different than if I stopped that diet, then if I stopped going to the gym and doing the other healthy thing, you know, so it's not really like a change in If you stop doing the things that were making you healthy, you're going to go back to being unhealthy.

Hopefully we can get you to a place where stopping taking the meds, you continue on all the other healthy things and habits that you developed. So that's, that's why offering those support services were important to us, you know, from the get go.

Zach Aten: That's great. It's kind of like the, the jump starter of your flywheel to get you going, you know, you learn and develop these better, healthier habits that then can take you on through life and have that healthier, future, I guess you would say. yeah so this is a a direct consumer offering.

So, Anyone, or anyone could get on your website and kind of go through your intake process to see if it's the right fit for them. what what do you see, you know, how do I ask this question? So much of [00:17:00] healthcare oftentimes flows through whoever our employer is. How do you see, where space or, you know, coming through people getting introduced it through their work?

Christ Spears: it's a good question, right? And one of the reasons that this category has been so explosive is that it's not covered by insurance for the most part when it comes to the weight loss side of things. So, individuals are looking for how do I get access to these medications at a price that I can afford if my insurance company isn't going to help.

you know, I, I think a couple of significant things are going to happen. you know, one is, I think with anything, the cost of these medications is going to continue to come down, whether it's the compounded version or the brand name version, and whether that's just because there's more of it available or, you know, government intervention like these meds will come down in price.

I think we're a long way away from seeing mass adoption at an insurance level and mostly because the conversations that I've had with insurance executives typically go like this, on average, an [00:18:00] employee is with an insurance or with their employer for 2. 7 years. That is just enough time for them to be on the medication, start to get to the healthy place and then move and we get none of the benefit of them having lost all that weight.

Zach Aten: Yeah.

Christ Spears: So when we, when they look at their data models and kind of their analysis of costs, they bear all of the costs and get none of the benefit. Even though that, you know, like if you do it across the whole category. Then everybody's participating in that, that longer tail benefit, but to be the first mover means you're going to bear all of the costs and not get any of the benefit.

So I think we're a couple of years out before mass adoption. Now, I think there are things that can accelerate that, you know, merit Medicaid, Medicare may, you know, step into the gap here and start to offer it. And then that'll kind of squeeze the other insurance companies to, to up their game.

You know, the other question that you asked is how do you get access to this through your employer? you know, and that's a great question because what I think we're seeing from a self insured perspective is employers being able to recognize that long [00:19:00] term gain without this specific data that backs it up, right?

If I lose 20 percent of my body weight, I'm more productive. I have less, you know, physical challenges. I have less medical visits. I have less likely outcomes that lead to significant health expenses. so the self insured category is doing a lot of looking into how they bring this on. The other primary way that we're getting into employee employer conversations is through, you know, big enterprises have the perks at work and discount programs.

So it's coming in through that way. Hey, Orderlymeds, you know, we've got 100, 000 employees. We use this discount program. What is the modified better pricing that you can give us given our employee count? And you're going to see those kind of programs 1st. I think, you know, I, I think an additional option that is being kicked around in the world is.

Almost like supplemental insurance. So how do I buy an [00:20:00] AFLAC like disability policy that really only applies to some of these compounded medications that, you know, it's, it's just a big Excel file at that point. Like, how much is the copay and the deductible and the volume that that makes that all work for those insurance models?

But I think you'll start to see some of those, um, non traditional insurance companies offer. Additional opportunities to get coverage.

Zach Aten: That's cool. Cause I can really see the value from the employer side. your employees have a better life, a healthier life, and it's not as much of a hit to your bottom line as if, you know, 

Christ Spears: you know, I think when you when you make this statement, all the heads nod, right? And we're just now waiting for the date. If I take a 10, 000 person employer and, you know, let's go with the US averages of, you know, 50 percent of those people are obese. And I help 50 percent of those obese in that population, those 5, 000 people, they all lose 20 to 30 pounds each.

You know, you've dramatically reduced the healthcare costs for the entire population of those [00:21:00] employees. Right. Nobody looks at that and goes, no, that's not what's going to happen. Healthcare is going to continue to go up. If all of those people lose 30 pounds, 20 percent of their body weight, and that's just not true, right?

So you're going to see improved productivity and there's reduction in healthcare costs, not just on the first 5, 000, but on the whole population of the company. From a healthcare perspective, and, you know, from a productivity perspective, everybody gets a little bit more productive because they're not covering for the folks that are out sick.

Zach Aten: Yeah. Yeah. Does this, I know you guys don't do, you don't work with insurance, but do people like on Medicare or the, or Medicaid, do they, can they access your service even if they're not using their insurance?

Christ Spears: Yes. So, you know, right now we are a hundred percent cash pay business. it is, it is all credit card online and not as even as a subscription. We don't lock in for, you know, two, three, whatever you, you can opt into those programs for, for different pricing. But most of our patients are just month to month, you know, come in, they renew when they're [00:22:00] ready for their, their next vial to be shipped to them.

They have the follow-up conversation with the doctor and then, you know, five days later it's, it's in their hands.

Zach Aten: That's awesome. Well, we're going to put a links to you guys in the show notes. you know, really appreciate you coming on Chris and telling us about the great work you're doing. Is there anything else that you want to talk about before we sign off?

Christ Spears: my, you know, just as a, as the founder in the business and something that I say to the team on a regular basis is, you know, I, I don't expect in my lifetime to ever to be able to have a bigger impact on humanity than this role today, right? And kind of providing access to these medications to the, whether it's 20, 000 people this month or 100, 000 people in a year.

But being able to have that kind of impact on people's lives by providing access to the medication at a more affordable price has been really rewarding and, you know, maybe drives me to work a little too hard on a daily basis. but, you know, it's it's for a good cause, and I think it's going to have a tremendous impact and outcome for society.

Zach Aten: Yeah. I think that's a great motivation to [00:23:00] have appreciate you and all the work that you and your team are doing. And thanks for coming on the podcast.

Christ Spears: Yeah, Zach. Thank you so much.

Zach Aten: Yep.