Weight-loss drugs are becoming a growing headache for those who finance healthcare in the United States. American employers expect their healthcare costs to rise by more than 11% in 2027, the biggest increase in more than two decades, with the spread of GLP-1 drugs among the factors adding to the pressure. In Brazil, the equation is different: patients taking Ozempic, Wegovy, Mounjaro or similar drugs generally pay for the injections themselves.
That does not mean zero cost for health operators. They still fund much of the medical follow-up surrounding obesity treatment. Between 2022 and 2025, consultations with endocrinologists rose by about 16% per beneficiary in Brazil’s private healthcare system. Visits to nutritionists increased by roughly 28%, while HbA1c tests rose by close to 24%. Over the same period, total outpatient medical consultations increased by only about 1% per beneficiary, while diagnostic tests overall rose by roughly 7%. The data show that demand grew much faster in precisely the areas linked to metabolism, diabetes, obesity and nutritional monitoring. That does not prove GLP-1 drugs were the cause, but the timing is consistent with the trend.
Holding 2022 utilization rates constant and adjusting only for growth in the covered population, 2025 saw an estimated 1.2 million additional endocrinology consultations, 880,000 extra nutrition visits and nearly 5 million additional HbA1c tests. Applying average costs to those categories puts the incremental spending at around R$330 million a year. That figure should be treated as an upper bound, not as “the cost of GLP-1s.” It captures the entire increase in the use of those services, regardless of the cause. Even so, R$330 million amounts to only about 0.12% of the R$276.9 billion spent on healthcare services by Brazil’s private health system in 2025. So far, the indirect cost appears small relative to the overall medical bill.
That is where the Brazilian advantage for health operators comes into view. In the United States, health plans and employers may end up paying both for the drug and for the consultations and tests that come with it. Last week, the Wall Street Journal cited the growing use of weight-loss drugs among the forces driving medical inflation. An Aon survey of clients found that the use of GLP-1 drugs for weight loss rose 75% in 2025.
In Brazil, the arithmetic is different. Today, the patient pays for the drug, while the health operator may eventually capture part of the savings it generates. If GLP-1s reduce hospitalizations, surgeries and obesity-related complications, medical loss ratios could improve without operators having borne the main cost of treatment. The thesis still has to withstand the test of time. The boom in weight-loss drugs is recent, some patients discontinue treatment and weight regain remains a risk, so it is too early to know whether those benefits will prove durable. Any move to make coverage of the drugs mandatory would also change the equation entirely. But for an industry obsessed with medical inflation and loss ratios, the current asymmetry is hard to ignore.
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