{"id":784446,"date":"2026-07-06T19:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T19:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/784446\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T19:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T19:02:11","slug":"secret-shopper-study-reveals-questionable-telehealth-glp-1-practices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/784446\/","title":{"rendered":"Secret shopper study reveals questionable telehealth GLP-1 practices"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"author-bio\">Katie covers the impact of health technology on patients, clinicians, and businesses. Her stories explore the price tag of clinical AI, digital health at the FDA, and the boom in direct-to-consumer telehealth. Confidential tips can be sent on Signal at palmer.01.<\/p>\n<p>A secret shopper study has pulled back the veil on the practices of nearly 50 telehealth sites that prescribe popular GLP-1 medications for weight loss.<\/p>\n<p>Direct-to-consumer telehealth companies have grown rapidly in response to patients\u2019 demand for GLP-1s like semaglutide and tirzepatide, especially after shortages created a market for compounded versions that aren\u2019t approved by the Food and Drug Administration. As online prescribing has grown, clinicians and public health experts have raised concerns about the potential for lax virtual care practices to put patients at risk.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In a <a href=\"https:\/\/jamanetwork.com\/journals\/jama\/fullarticle\/10.1001\/jama.2026.9131?guestAccessKey=fa92b2cf-8029-44c4-a5ea-da5b3d264967&amp;utm_source=For_The_Media&amp;utm_medium=referral&amp;utm_campaign=ftm_links&amp;utm_content=tfl&amp;utm_term=070626\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">study<\/a> published Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, one researcher at Yale University set out to document those online prescriptions by posing as a patient. The results capture what many Americans have learned in the last few years: It is extraordinarily fast and easy to get a GLP-1 online.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-text\">STAT+ Exclusive Story<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-login\">Already have an account? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/login\/\" data-stat-login=\"\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker login cta\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Log in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"restricted-content-breaker-bg\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/stat-plus-breaker-bg.png\" alt=\"STAT+\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"stat-plus-logo\" src=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/wp-content\/themes\/stat\/images\/stat-plus-logo-white.svg\" alt=\"STAT+\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\tThis article is exclusive to STAT+ subscribers<br \/>\n\t\t\t\tUnlock this article \u2014 and get additional analysis of the technologies disrupting health care \u2014 by subscribing to STAT+.<\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-content-breaker-wrapper-cta mobile\">Already have an account? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/login\/\" data-stat-login=\"\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker login cta mobile\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Log in<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tIndividual plans<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\tGroup plans<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" class=\"stat-button view-all\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker view all plans\" aria-label=\"View All Plans\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">View All Plans<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"restricted-content-text\">\n\t\t\t\t\t\tTo read the rest of this story subscribe to STAT+.\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.statnews.com\/stat-plus\/\" class=\"stat-button restricted-button\" data-stat-paywall-cta=\"breaker subscribe cta 1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Subscribe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Katie covers the impact of health technology on patients, clinicians, and businesses. Her stories explore the price tag&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":784447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[49,48,84,27907,377,1229,994,2101,74547,953],"class_list":["post-784446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-medication","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-health-tech","tag-medication","tag-obesity","tag-research","tag-stat","tag-telehealth","tag-weight-loss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=784446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/784446\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/784447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=784446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=784446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=784446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}