Carrum Health, which offers value-based specialty care for employers, is teaming up with Virta Health on weight management.
Virta offers virtual counseling, nutrition coaching and medication management with GLP-1s. Employers can customize Virta’s offering depending on their benefits. Meanwhile, Carrum has already provided bariatric surgeries for weight management.
Now, members can be referred and coordinated between the two as needed.
“The goal was to make sure that we were taking care of members across the entire weight loss management protocol,” Matt Eurey, chief commercial officer at Carrum, told Fierce Healthcare in an exclusive advanced interview. “Now that there’s been this huge interest in the clinical efficacy of the GLP-1s, because there’s a need to do this entire continuum of care, we saw an opportunity to partner with Virta and do more.”
Not every person who needs to lose weight needs bariatric surgery, and the same is true of GLP-1s. Some patients may need to lose weight to prepare for a musculoskeletal procedure, such as a knee or hip replacement. Now, an employee can enter Virta’s nutrition counseling program, lower their BMI, and become eligible for the procedure through Carrum’s surgical network. On the flip side, a Carrum member who is not eligible for bariatric surgery may be referred to Virta for weight-loss support.
Over four in 10 American adults have obesity. Among employees with obesity and other weight concerns, the combined economic burden was $425.5 billion in 2023, one study found, driven by excess medical costs and lost workplace productivity. This partnership allows organizations to cover GLP-1s in an outcomes-driven and cost-conscious way, executives said.
Carrum’s network features the top 10% of surgeons in the U.S., according to Eurey, who receive bundled payments to manage costs and maintain great outcomes. Between that and Virta’s thoughtful approach around medications, “you’re getting best-in-class pricing … that’s going to afford us an opportunity to bend that cost curve.”
The partners will coordinate care. Carrum uses a variety of data flows to exchange data with providers and to close the loop on their care, for instance, determining whether someone is a candidate for surgery or what their GLP-1 outcomes were. Anyone undergoing surgery with Carrum also receives a care navigator to facilitate medical record collection, warm handoffs and other support. “We just don’t leave anything for chance,” Eurey noted.
"Our model starts with individualized nutrition therapy, using GLP-1s and other evidence-based therapies thoughtfully and only when clinically appropriate,” Laura Walmsley, Virta’s chief commercial officer, said in an announcement. “By joining forces with Carrum, we will be able to offer members the full spectrum of metabolic care.”
Virta’s goal is to reverse metabolic disease by addressing its root cause: metabolic dysfunction. Its virtual clinic offers provider care with advanced AI to individualize the experience. This includes personalized nutrition informed by each member’s unique biomarkers, food logs and insights into how they’re feeling physically and emotionally. Virta’s AI-powered assistant Viv supports members around the clock by nudging healthier choices, increasing awareness and prompting live coaches and clinicians to step in as needed.
Employers save on average up to $12,000 per member over the first two years of engagement with Virta, the company says.