COST MAP
What will the whole bill be?
The useful price is the one that applies to your care after the opening offer ends.
Ask what you will pay each month
A September 2026 price check found monthly care fees with medicine billed separately.
Ask for a written total after any first-month offer ends. Include visits, medicine, tests, and delivery in the question.
Care
Visits or a membership
Medicine
The named pill or shot
Extras
Ask about tests and delivery
Also ask how much is due when no prescription is issued, and how cancellation works.
Cash prices have conditions
Cash offers checked in September 2026 ranged from $149 to $499 a month across semaglutide products (Ozempic and Wegovy).
The price depends on the product’s name and the amount of medicine in a single pill or shot. Each offer also has rules about who can use it.
The $149 starting offer was for tablets. Introductory injection offers began at $199 for new patients.
The shot discounts covered only the first two monthly supplies of medicine.
For the $199 Ozempic shot offer, the September 2026 rules required a new patient, age 18 or older, living in the U.S., who pays without insurance.
If you have insurance, this cash offer cannot be paid back by your plan or count toward its deductible, the amount you pay before coverage starts.
Ask which monthly price applies to your prescription after the discount ends.
December 31, 2026, was the scheduled end date for those introductory terms; offers can change.
A medicine price on its own does not include every care fee.
Ask your insurance plan directly
Ask which exact medicine the plan covers, for which condition, and what you would pay.
Prior authorization means getting agreement from the insurer before coverage starts.
As of September 2026, Medicare drug coverage can depend on why the medicine is prescribed.
Even when Medicare allows coverage for your health condition, your plan may not pay for the medicine. It must be on the plan’s covered-drug list and meet its approval rules.
Medicare has a temporary route
As of September 2026, eligible patients pay $50 per monthly supply of certain products through the Medicare GLP-1 Bridge.
The Bridge is a temporary Medicare program with a separate way to approve prescriptions and pay pharmacies. In 2026, one central service handles those steps instead of your usual drug plan.
The scheduled opening date is July 1, 2026, and the program is due to close on December 31, 2027.
To qualify, a person must be 18 or older and have Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage. That coverage may come through a separate drug plan or through Medicare Advantage with drug benefits.
Weight and health at the start of treatment also matter. Ask the doctor to check the program’s weight rules and full list of health conditions against your records.
People who have type 2 diabetes use their regular Medicare drug plan instead of the Bridge. Other health conditions can also require that route.
A Part D payment for GLP-1 medicine during 2026 rules out your use of the Bridge for 2026.
The doctor must send a prescription and a request for approval. The Bridge program must approve that request before it pays.
The Bridge’s $50 monthly payment is extra spending. It does not count toward the yearly limit on your payments for drugs covered by your usual Part D plan.
You can still owe that $50 after reaching your usual drug plan’s yearly spending limit.
The program adds no extra price help for people with low incomes.
Read the terms, not just the price
Use this example to see the introductory limit and the price that follows it.
The price depends on how much medicine is in each pill. Ask for the price of the exact pill on your prescription.
CMS, the agency that runs Medicare, explains the program’s dates and payment terms.