Hospitals Have a Weight Problem

I’m not sure why I think this is extremely funny, but I do. Hospitals have a weight problem.

Yes, hospitals and all their doctors, nurses, other clinicians and professionals who are trying to keep their patients as healthy as possible by treating their patients’ obesity and diabetes can’t do it for themselves.

That’s my takeaway from a recent employer benefits survey from Aon, the benefit consulting company. This time, though, the survey is of hospitals and health systems as employers, not as providers. You can download Aon’s 16-page survey report here.

I wrote about employers blaming the cost of GLP-1 weight-loss drugs for their rising employee medical costs in this column, “Fat Shaming Our Way to Lower Health Insurance Premiums.” As it turns out, health systems and hospitals are, too.

The new Aon report is based on a survey of 155 health systems. The systems, per Aon, represent more than 1,500 hospitals and 3.6 million health system and hospital employees nationwide.

Asked to rank their top workforce concern, “managing increasing healthcare costs” topped the list, cited by 93% of the health system respondents. Sixth on the list, cited by 80%, was “managing GLP-1 spend.” Spending by their employees on GLP-1 drugs to treat obesity and/or diabetes ranked higher than other familiar workforce issues such as burnout (69%), work-life balance (56%), unionization (51%) and aging workforce (49%).

Yes, health systems as employers are more worried about the cost of GLP-1 drugs than burnout.

Maybe health systems as employers should be worried. The top three and five of the top 10 prescription drugs used by their employees, based on health plan claims, are for weight loss and/or diabetes, per the Aon report. In ranked order, the five drugs are: Wegovy (1), Mounjaro (2), Ozempic (3), Zepbound (6) and Jardiance (9).

Making the survey results more puzzling is the fact that a higher-than-you’d-expect percentage of healthcare workers suffer from food insecurity, as I commented on in this blog post, “Oh SNAP! Healthcare Workers Are Hungry, Too.”

Puzzling? Funny? Maybe ironic is a better adjective.

Either way, hospitals and health systems are taking a dose of their own medicine, and they don’t like it.

Thanks for reading.

About the Author

David Burda

David Burda began covering healthcare in 1983 and hasn’t stopped since. Dave writes this monthly column “Burda on Healthcare,” contributes weekly blog posts, manages our weekly newsletter 4sight Friday, and hosts our weekly Roundup podcast. Dave believes that healthcare is a business like any other business, and customers — patients — are king. If you do what’s right for patients, good business results will follow.

Dave’s personal experiences with the healthcare system both as a patient and family caregiver have shaped his point of view. It’s also been shaped by covering the industry for 40 years as a reporter and editor. He worked at Modern Healthcare for 25 years, the last 11 as editor.

Prior to Modern Healthcare, he did stints at the American Medical Record Association (now AHIMA) and the American Hospital Association. After Modern Healthcare, he wrote a monthly column for Twin Cities Business explaining healthcare trends to a business audience, and he developed and executed content marketing plans for leading healthcare corporations as the editorial director for healthcare strategies at MSP Communications.

When he’s not reading and writing about healthcare, Dave spends his time riding the trails of DuPage County, IL, on his bike, tending his vegetable garden and daydreaming about being a lobster fisherman in Maine. He lives in Wheaton, IL, with his lovely wife of 40 years and his three children, none of whom want to be journalists or lobster fishermen.

November 19, 2025

Hospitals Have a Weight Problem

About the Author

David Burda

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