Nov 2, 2023

Redeem now Calibrate is a weight-loss startup that offers drugs such as Ozempic alongside coaching. Some members say they've struggled to get support or medications from Calibrate in their second year. They say they've gained back much of the weight they lost with Calibrate's program. Christina started taking Wegovy in September 2021 after getting a prescription through Calibrate, a startup that promises science-backed help with weight loss . She'd already tried dieting and exercising, but nothing had worked for her. After about five months of the weight-loss injections alongside the diabetes drug metformin, Christina had lost 60 pounds, she said, "and my whole life changed." Her heart rate slowed, breathing became easier, and she could complete tasks that used to exhaust her, even small ones like putting on socks. This story is available exclusively to Insider subscribers. Become an Insider and start reading now.Have an account? Log in . Thrilled with her progress, she signed up for a second year of Calibrate , which the startup calls its Masters program. That's when her experience took a turn. Support from Calibrate almost immediately dropped off, she said. Her medications stopped coming in on time, and she said she would wait weeks to hear back from Calibrate when messaging nurses for help through the app. Calibrate failed to get her medication for February and blamed her insurance. Christina's insurer said Calibrate never submitted the right paperwork. That month, she gained back 40 pounds. She never received medication through Calibrate again, and she's since gained back all the weight she lost. "I'm still gaining weight, and I don't know how to stop it," she said. "Basically, I'm lost. And I feel like Calibrate put me in this position." Ozempic pens in a pharmacy. Her story is a familiar one among once loyal members of Calibrate. Earlier this year, Insider reported that the startup was inundated with complaints and requests for refunds from first-year members, as it struggled to get patients access to drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy and took weeks to respond to patients' messages. Now, some members who signed up for a second year after achieving life-changing results in year one say they've stopped receiving support or medications from Calibrate. They've become frustrated and desperate for help from the company as they watch the pounds they lost pile back on. For this story, Insider spoke with 14 patients currently or formerly enrolled in Calibrate's Masters program, as well as two former Calibrate employees and one current worker, and reviewed hundreds of Better Business Bureau complaints filed against Calibrate. The patients broadly said their second-year experiences were far worse than their first year and that they didn't receive the services that Calibrate promised. Insider is identifying the patients in this article by their first names to protect their privacy. The employees asked not to be identified for fear of retribution from Calibrate. "These reports are representative of member experience issues which the company has acknowledged and addressed. Calibrate's North Star remains clear: member outcomes," a Calibrate spokesperson said in an email. The spokesperson pointed to a blog post on Calibrate's website acknowledging members' complaints and another page showing how long it takes Calibrate to respond to members' questions, along with a phone number they can call for help. Calibrate founder and former CEO Isabelle Kenyon. Calibrate In an August interview , Calibrate's founder and former CEO, Isabelle Kenyon, told Insider that insurance denials and drug shortages had saddled staff with more work. She said the company was working on improving customer service. What these changes may mean for the company's patients isn't clear. In the past week, more than a dozen Calibrate health coaches have posted on LinkedIn that they're looking for a new role or updated their profiles to show that they left the company in October. How the Masters program is supposed to work Calibrate, launched in June 2020, was one of the first weight-management startups built to prescribe new weight-loss drugs online in combination with coaching to help members adjust their habits. It sought to set itself apart from popular programs like Weight Watchers and Jenny Craig, which focused on diet and exercise, by emphasizing that a person's weight has more to do with their biology than their willpower. The New York startup prescribes GLP-1 agonists, a class of drugs that includes diabetes drugs Ozempic and Mounjaro and anti-obesity drug Wegovy, all of which can help people lose significant amounts of weight. But the drugs are expensive and hard to find, and many insurers don't cover them. Calibrate attracts members by promising to help them get the drugs covered by their insurance. It also guarantees a refund if patients don't lose at least 10% of their body weight during the first year of the program. Enrolling costs $1,750 but doesn't include the cost of medication. Calibrate has said it's cared for more than 30,000 members. picture alliance/Getty Images After the first year of the program, Calibrate members must sign up for a second year to keep refilling their prescriptions, according to Calibrate's website . The company claims that 70% of its members sign up for a second year. The second-year program costs $456 for access to a prescription or $648 for prescriptions plus monthly coaching sessions. All Masters members receive an initial doctor visit and lab work, along with monthly self-guided lessons, which tend to recap topics that members learned about in their first year, according to multiple patients. Like in the first year, these prices don't include the cost of medications. Patients say support and prescriptions evaporated after their first year of Calibrate That wasn't the case for Katie. The Masters patient said she lost 70 pounds during her first year of Calibrate. But when she signed up for a second year, she said it took Calibrate two months to order her lab work, which patients are meant to complete before their initial doctor appointment. Calibrate left out a test in that order and canceled her initial appointment, she said. The company never rescheduled that appointment. Katie's insurance approval for her Wegovy prescription expired in July, and she regained about 30 pounds in two months, she said. Twelve patients, including Katie, told Insider their experience in their second year has been far worse than their first year. More than 50 Better Business Bureau complaints filed in the past six months discuss issues with Calibrate's second-year program, including long response times, difficulties getting lab work ordered or doctor appointments scheduled, and refund denials after patients didn't receive the services they expected from Calibrate. Getty Images Eight patients who spoke with Insider said they waited a month or more to see a Calibrate doctor or complete the lab work required by the company at the beginning of each year. For some patients, the delays meant they went without medication for a time. At least six Calibrate patients in their second year of the program told Insider they abruptly stopped receiving their medications, often leading them to gain back much or all of the weight they'd lost. It's not always clear who's to blame for these issues. Some patients ran into medication shortages or insurance problems. But Calibrate's slow response times and other missteps caused the problems in some cases and made resolutions more difficult in others. Another patient, James, said he waited four months for his doctor appointment. Plus, he said the startup botched his insurance paperwork, leaving him with a $500 bill for the lab tests. James said he found Calibrate's curriculum helpful for developing healthier habits. He lost about 80 pounds during his first year taking a GLP-1 drug. But he still hasn't gotten a new prescription while enrolled in the Masters program and has regained about 50 pounds. Patients in their second year also said they'd experienced long delays in responses from Calibrate staff. Many patients said they waited weeks at a time to hear back from the startup on questions about their prescriptions. Arantza Pena Popo/Insider To a certain degree, support for second-year patients is diminished by design. A former employee on Calibrate's clinical team said the startup allocated fewer doctors to second-year patients because those patients historically required less help from Calibrate. But as layoffs and medication shortages have strained Calibrate's operations , some of these traditionally easy-to-treat longtime members now need help from Calibrate and don't have it. "There was no support," a former manager on the member-experience team told Insider. "We did a really great job marketing to them, but then we kind of left them hanging." The unproven promise of tapering off GLP-1 drugs A key feature of Calibrate's program is its promise to help members taper off the GLP-1 drugs and maintain their weight loss. The company says members should typically start tapering when they hit the top of the "healthy" body-mass-index range, just below 25. Calibrate claims that its members achieve an average weight loss of 15% after two years in the program, though it doesn't say how many of those members remained on medications. It's an attractive pitch, since some patients say they don't want to use GLP-1 injections for life. But it's unproven: Clinical-trial research has found most people gain the majority of their weight back after they stop taking the drugs. Plus, Calibrate's internal software isn't properly designed to help the startup's clinicians taper patients' medications, a former employee on the clinical team said. One Calibrate user, Bill, told Insider in June that once he tapered off Wegovy at the startup's suggestion, his hunger rushed back and he quickly regained 15 pounds. Panicked, he started taking the drug again. Dr. Disha Narang, an endocrinologist and obesity-medicine specialist in Chicago, said there's no evidence yet that most people could quit a GLP-1 medication and keep the weight off. That's "false advertising," she said of companies suggesting otherwise. It's possible that some patients may be able to move to a lower dose of medication and sustain weight loss. But for many patients, taking a lower dose or stopping the medication causes their appetites to return, weight loss to slow, or weight to be gained back, she said. So far, doctors aren't able to predict which way a patient will respond, she said. Complicating matters is that tapering patients requires lower doses of the medicines. Those lower doses of Ozempic and Wegovy have been in particularly short supply . Ozempic and Wegovy both contain the same main ingredient, semaglutide. Calibrate has shared data showing some members maintain their weight loss after two years with the startup, but it hasn't said how many of those people have tapered off of their anti-obesity drugs. The company put out a press release in October that said a cohort of 650 members maintained an average weight loss of 17% after two years of using Calibrate. The release doesn't say whether any of these patients were tapered off their medications. Wegovy injection pens 'Money down the drain' Calibrate patients who aren't happy with their experience in the first year or who can't get their prescriptions have a few opportunities to get their money back. Calibrate paid out millions of dollars in refunds to customers in the first half of 2023, Insider previously reported. But Masters patients aren't eligible for refunds, according to the company. At least four second-year patients Insider spoke with said they sought refunds from Calibrate after they didn't receive the services they paid for. "In retrospect, Calibrate Masters was literally throwing money down the drain," the patient named Katie said. Three patients told Insider they'd gone to other telehealth startups or to their primary-care doctors to get weight-loss drugs, despite having already paid in full for Calibrate's Masters program. Some patients stick with Calibrate, though, even after complaining of medication gaps and poor customer service. Some expressed worries that they wouldn't be able to get a prescription outside the company. Beth said she lost 50 pounds during her first year of Calibrate in 2021. She stayed with the company for a second year hoping to lose another 20 pounds, but her weight has plateaued after medication shortages forced her to switch from Wegovy to Rybelsus. She said she signed up out of fear that her insurer would stop covering any of the drugs if she abandoned the program. "I felt like I was being held hostage," she said. Want to tell us about your experience with Calibrate or weight-loss drugs? Contact Shelby Livingston at  slivingston@insider.com  and Rebecca Torrence at  rtorrence@insider.com . Sign up for notifications from Insider! Stay up to date with what you want to know. Subscribe to push notifications