Step therapy
The vocabulary of getting a claim paid, of FDA enforcement, and of what on-label and off-label really mean.
What is Step therapy?
The insurer requiring you to fail a cheaper or older drug first.
For GLP-1s that usually means Contrave or Qsymia before Wegovy or Zepbound. A legitimate cost-control tool and, in practice, one of the biggest access barriers in the class.
GLP-1 insurance coverage: Medicare, Medicaid, commercial →
GLP Watchdog writes these definitions from FDA labels and peer-reviewed PubMed literature.
Where Step therapy comes up on this site
Drug pages
Other terms under Insurance and regulatory
Where the evidence lives
- GLP-1 insurance coverage: Medicare, Medicaid, commercial
- The full GLP-1 glossary (149 terms, 8 categories)
- Research articles — written from primary sources
- Tools and calculators
- Compare GLP-1 telehealth providers