2024-05-09 17:50:03
The new weight loss ingredients are only prescribed to certain patient groups. Now the AOK warns against counterfeit prescriptions.
The hype surrounding the new weight loss injections doesn’t let up. After celebrities like Elon Musk and Kim Kardashian reported that they had lost weight with the new preparations, there is a run on the products.
They were originally developed for diabetes patients. Since they have shown enormous success in reducing weight, they are now also prescribed to obese, i.e. very overweight, people. However, doctors only prescribe them under very limited conditions:
- Body mass index over 30
- Body mass index of 27 or more, with a previous illness that could be controlled by the medication (e.g. high blood pressure, increased inflammatory markers)
Read here how you can calculate your body mass index.
Now counterfeit prescriptions are apparently increasing so that people (probably especially young) who do not meet any of the criteria can get their hands on the medication.
The AOK Nordost warns of an increase in counterfeit paper prescriptions, as the “Ärzte Zeitung” reports. It’s about the drugs Ozempic, Trulicity and Mounjaro as well as Tilidine – the latter is a very strong painkiller that belongs to the group of opioids and also appears in the statistics.
- Opioids belong to the group of medications that can become addictive very quickly. Here you can read more about it.
All are drugs approved for use within narrow limits, the first three only for weight loss. AOK Nordost is now reporting that at least one in ten prescriptions presented to pharmacies for one of these products in the first quarter of 2024 was counterfeit. The pharmacies are asked to “check relevant regulations particularly carefully”. If they “negligently bill obviously forged prescriptions,” the AOK continues, they reserve the right to “retax these prescriptions” (the health insurance company will then not reimburse the costs).
Damage could run into the millions
It goes on to say: “With regard to the products mentioned, the fraud has now ‘led to six-figure financial damage’ at AOK Nordost. Extrapolated over the year, this one local health insurance company alone could have been defrauded of millions.
This has never happened before
The “Ärzte Zeitung” further reports: According to AOK Nordost’s misconduct officer, Ralf Selle, the number of counterfeit prescriptions currently being observed is “extraordinary” both in terms of quantity and financial damage. There have always been fake regulations, for example to obtain anabolic steroids or tilidine. But we have never seen so many false recipes for high-priced products in such a short time.
It must also be assumed that the number of unreported cases is high, Selle continued. “The well-made counterfeit recipes are often not even recognizable.”