New kit aids primary care physicians for weight loss counselling

New tool kit provides primary care physicians with guidelines for weight loss counselling

Healthcare practitioners and researchers have a new tool to combat obesity in primary care settings, according to a study published in Obesity, the flagship journal of The Obesity Society.

In 2011, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), a health insurance company in the USA began covering intensive behavioral therapy (IBT) for obesity when provided to qualified beneficiaries in primary care settings. The benefit provides weekly, brief (15 minute) visits the first month, followed by every-other week visits in months 2-6. Patients who lose 3 kg (6.6 lb) at month 6 are eligible for monthly brief (15 minute) visits in months 7-12 to facilitate weight loss maintenance. This sums to a maximum of 22 possible visits in 1 year.

“CMS’s IBT benefit for obesity represents a major advance in recognizing the perils of obesity and the health benefits of moderate weight loss” wrote author Thomas Wadden, Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine.

In the first assessment of this brief IBT approach, participants lost a mean of 5.4 percent of initial weight at 6 months, which increased to 6.1 percent at 1 year

CMS model however, does not provide for a manual for physicians and other qualified practitioners to use in delivering IBT to patients. 

To fill this gap, Wadden and colleagues have developed a 21-session treatment manual, which is modeled on the schedule of visits recommended by CMS. The manual is adapted from the widely used Diabetes Prevention Program. In the first assessment of this brief IBT approach, participants lost a mean of 5.4 percent of initial weight at 6 months, which increased to 6.1 percent at 1 year.

“These are favorable weight losses,” noted co-author Adam Tsai, an obesity medicine physician at Kaiser Permanente Colorado in Denver, and at the University of Colorado, School of Medicine, in Aurora. “We hope that our IBT manual will help practitioners in primary care settings achieve comparable results.”

Findings of the study, titled ” A Protocol to Deliver Intensive Behavioral Therapy (IBT) for Obesity in Primary Settings: The MODEL-IBT Program” was published online. The acronym MODEL refers to Managing Obesity with Diet, Exercise, and Liraglutide. Liraglutide, a weight loss medication was added to IBT.