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Dominican patients await insurance coverage for new obesity, diabetes drugs
🇩🇴 Dominican Republic /Health & Science

Dominican patients await insurance coverage for new obesity, diabetes drugs

From Diario Libre · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish, summarized and contextualized by DistantNews.

At a glance

News Named sources Ongoing story
  • Innovative obesity and diabetes medications, added to the Dominican Republic's basic drug formulary over a year ago, still lack effective coverage by health insurance providers (ARS).
  • The primary challenge is translating the inclusion of these treatments, like GLP-1 agonists and SGLT-2 inhibitors, from paper to patient reality.
  • Patients await approval from the National Council of Social Security (CNSS) for ARS to cover these potentially life-changing medications, which experts deem a national necessity.

Despite the inclusion of innovative medications for obesity and diabetes in the Dominican Republic's basic drug formulary more than a year ago, patients are still awaiting effective coverage from health insurance providers (ARS). Dr. Dolores Mejía, an endocrinology and nutrition expert and president of the Diabetes Observatory, identifies the gap between policy and practice as the nation's main challenge.

This conditions that Dominicans should have access and coverage by the ARS to those medications.

— Dolores MejíaDr. Mejía explains the expected outcome of including new medications in the basic formulary.

Mejía explained that 18 new tools for diabetes management, including GLP-1 agonists, SGLT-2 inhibitors, and high-intensity statins, were incorporated into the formulary over a year ago. This inclusion theoretically grants Dominicans access and ARS coverage for these drugs. However, the National Council of Social Security (CNSS) must still approve the ARS's financial coverage for these treatments to become a reality for patients.

It is included, but it must be taken from ink to people's lives, that people benefit from all the benefits, redundantly, of these innovative molecules.

— Dolores MejíaDr. Mejía stresses the need for practical patient access to newly approved medications.

She emphasized that the formulary's creation involved collaboration between medical societies and the Ministry of Public Health, supervised by the Inter-American Development Bank. Yet, Mejía stressed that inclusion is insufficient without patient access. "It is included, but it must be taken from ink to people's lives, that people benefit from all the benefits, redundantly, of these innovative molecules," she stated.

It is imperative to change the story. It is not about generating more scenarios for substitute therapies like dialysis, transplant. We have to go to the root cause.

— Dolores MejíaDr. Mejía argues for proactive treatment of obesity and diabetes to prevent severe complications.

Mejía considers expanding access to these treatments a "national necessity" given the high rates of overweight, obesity, and diabetes. She advocates for addressing the root causes through effective obesity interventions and optimal diabetes control, utilizing medications that can significantly alter patient outcomes. These treatments offer benefits beyond weight loss, positively impacting cardiovascular health, fatty liver disease, kidney disease progression, and atherosclerotic arterial disease.

We want molecules that impact multiple systems, as is the case with GLP-1s.

— Dolores MejíaDr. Mejía highlights the broad benefits of specific drug classes like GLP-1 agonists.
DistantNews Editorial

Originally published by Diario Libre in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized by our editorial team with added local perspective. Read our editorial standards.

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