Weight Loss Management in Vancouver, WA
Achieve Your Weight Loss Goals Safely With Our Experts
Its Simple: our patients do better with these medications because Ed Kauffman (Founder) is on them. We have built out our program from first hand experience!
Why struggle on your weight loss journey? There are effective alternatives to bariatric surgery. With advances in weight loss medications, Vancouver Direct Primary Care can help you manage weight gain, high blood pressure, body fat, sleep apnea, and more.
Our Internal Medicine-trained professionals will create a personalized medical weight loss program to help you achieve your goals.
In this article, we’ll cover each of the following topics so you have the information you need and are looking for:
- A Short Intro to Medical Weight Loss
- Is Weight Management Worth it?
- How does Medical Weight Loss work?
- Weight Loss Drugs & Treatments
- Insurance & Weight Loss Management
- Common side effects and tips to avoid them!
What's Medical Weight Loss?
A medical weight management program is when a licensed provider (Doctor / Nurse Practitioner / Physician Assistant) trained in obesity medicine creates your weight loss plan.
The advantage of a medical weight loss program is the ability to use medications to help you make the lifestyle changes needed for a healthy weight. Oftentimes, medical weight management will include referrals Registered Dietitians who provide nutritional counseling for meal planning.
Is Medical Weight Loss Worth it?
A Medical weight management program is worth it. It puts you in charge of your overall health without bariatric surgery or other surgical weight loss methods. By greatly reducing how many times a day you think about food it makes it easy for lifestyle changes improving your eating habits.
The medications change your eating habits so that by utilizing a low-calorie diet you experience weight loss. Weight loss improves your overall health and weight related conditions by increasing your metabolism, decreasing body fat, improving sleep apnea, lowering your body mass index (BMI), and improving many other health conditions.
These metrics are easily tracked with body composition scans. Other weight loss programs can’t get to the core of the issue with obesity without bariatric surgery. This leaves you feeling alone with your medical conditions. By putting wellness first and treating your weight-related conditions we can get to the core of making the behavior change for you to live your best life.
How Does Medical Weight Management Work?
The best medical weight loss method is one that uses an obesity medicine trained licensed Internal Medicine professional (Doctor, Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant) to design a weight loss program that addresses the underlying medical conditions that cause obesity to begin with.
Our healthcare professionals prescribe weight loss medications, team up with registered dietitians to help with meal replacement, and treat the underlying health conditions.
All the while we monitor your body composition and can track BMI. For many, this weight management program is the to avoid bariatric surgery.
Effects of excess weight
- Aches and Pains
- Difficulty Sleeping
- Fluctuating energy levels
- Feeling tired
- Fluctuating mood
- High Blood Pressure
- Pre-Diabetes and Diabetes
- High Cholesterol
- Back and neck pain
- Knee pain
Medical Weight Loss Drugs
Ozempic/Wegovy/Semaglutide
• These are all the same medication, just different names
• Treat obesity by reducing body mass index promoting healthy eating and physical activity
• Our wellness focused network of dietitians help get the most from this
Phentermine
• Promotes healthy eating by lowering your appetite, making low calorie meal planning successful
• For many, some simple nutritional counseling by dietitians can have a big impact for making the behavior changes needed. Often this includes meal replacement shakes.
Zepbound/Mounjaro/Tirzepatide
• These are all the same medication, just different names
• When used with a weight loss plan can change eating habits enabling a low calorie diet
• Increases metabolism and physical activity
• Great healthcare option to avoid surgical weight loss and bariatric surgery
Does Insurance Cover Medical Weight Loss?
Very few insurance companies will cover any weight loss option other than bariatric surgery.
Unfortunately this includes weight loss medications. However, they will often cover the costs of a weight loss plan utilizing dietitians to improve your overall health with meal planning and lifestyle changes.
To address the costs for these weight loss options, there are special compounding pharmacies that greatly reduce the medication costs to as little as $75 per month.
What are some common side effects of Tirzepatide and Semaglutide?
The reason Vancouver Direct Primary Care’s patients do so well with these medications is because Ed Kauffman (Founder) is on them. We have built out our program from first hand experience to guide you to the best outcome possible!
Some people on Tirzepatide and Semaglutide might experience some degree of nausea, lightheadedness, constipation, diarrhea, and exhaustion. Here are some simple tips you can follow to help manage the medications:
- Don’t skip meals! Your body needs the fuel for energy
- Start every meal off with water, followed by vegetables, and then lean protein. This ensures that your body gets the nutrition that you need.
- vegetables to prevent constipation
- Due to how much weight our patients lose, they are at risk for losing skeletal muscle mass. Here we prioritize lean protein to ensure you don’t lose muscle mass
- Do the injection at night before going to bed. This way if you are responding to the medicastion more immediately it’ll just be while you’re sleeping
- Certain medications like ondansetron can be very helpful for the nausea
- No FAD diets! We want to use the medications to make meaningful change. Not crash dieting.
We're here for you.
Have you been struggling with weight gain? You don’t have to do this alone. We are here for you.
Through extensive studies, we now know that extra weight is a chronic condition.
It’s treatable and should be treated as such!
As part of our Weight-loss management program, we will extensively assess your needs, health, and goals.
By analyzing the causes specific to you, we can develop an individually tailored plan to help you lose weight.
For many, this includes medications such as GLP-1 Receptor Agonists (Wegovy, Semaglutide, Ozempic), Metformin, Contrave, Topiramate, and Phentermine.
Thoughtful care to help you:
- Meet your weight-loss goals
- Feel Supported
- Sleep better
- Minimize aches and pains
- Better Sleep
- More energy throughout the day
- Meet your nutritional goals
- Meet your health goals
By treating this as a chronic condition, we can support you in keeping the weight off. So why wait? Enroll today, and let’s get started on your weight-loss journey.
High Quality Primary Care.
This program and all others are included with your membership at our low monthly rate of only $99. There’s no minimum contract; you may cancel anytime with only a text message.
Vancouver Direct Primary Care is a membership-based clinic. Just like you have a monthly payment with a gym membership, we operate in the same way.
This is how we can limit the number of patients per provider, and how we ensure that you get thorough and thoughtful care under our values of being heard, feeling accepted, and receiving compassionate care.
There is hope when it comes to your weight management! With Vancouver Direct Primary Care, we will create a weight management program that puts your needs first!
Sign up today to get the most value for your weight management.
Individuals
$99/month
- Cancel anytime with just a text
- Direct and secure Provider access via phone, email, video, or in-person
- Thorough, Thoughtful, and Compassionate Care
- Care that puts your goals at the center
- 10% discount for partners & families
Additional Services Included
Your membership includes all Primary Care needs as well! This includes your checkups, medication prescriptions and refills, lab orders, specialist referrals, imaging studies, and many other primary care needs! This is Vancouver’s most thorough and affordable option for your health.
You also have our Testosterone Replacement Therapy evaluation and treatment program included in your membership!
