Medicare patients pick GLP-1 shots over pills; Florida pharmacist convicted in massive oxycodone scheme; female ER physicians order more tests — Morning Medical Update

Medicare patients pick the shot over the pill

Early reads from Medicare's $50 obesity drug pilot run counter to what the industry expected.

Many older patients entering Medicare's new obesity drug pilot are choosing injections over pills, physicians and analysts told Reuters. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) this month launched an 18-month trial that for the first time covers Novo Nordisk's Wegovy and Eli Lilly's Zepbound and Foundayo for weight loss alone, at $50 a month. Industry expectations ran the other way.

Novo's U.S. chief, Jamey Millar, said in June that company research showed Medicare beneficiaries favored the oral form two-to-one.

Eight of 10 physicians and three analysts interviewed said patients are asking for the injectables once they see the efficacy data. In separate trials, Zepbound produced more than 22% weight loss over 72 weeks and Wegovy 15% over 68 weeks, compared with about 14% for oral Wegovy and 11% for Foundayo. Access has been uneven.

Florida pharmacist convicted in 335,000-pill oxycodone scheme

Jurors found Olushola Yusuf sold high-dose pills for cash at about 10 times the typical price.

A federal jury in the Southern District of Florida convicted Olushola Yusuf, 60, of Tampa, Florida, a licensed pharmacist and pharmacy owner, of conspiracy to illegally distribute drugs and five counts of illegal drug distribution, the Department of Justice said.

Prosecutors said Yusuf dispensed at least 335,351 oxycodone 30 mg pills, the maximum strength of a drug typically reserved for patients with chronic cancer pain or traumatic injuries, to customers who had no medical need for it. She sold the pills through two pharmacies she owned in Margate and Pembroke Pines, Florida, charging roughly 10 times the typical price and requiring payment in cash.

Some customers paid as much as $1,000 a month and drove across the state to fill prescriptions other pharmacies had refused, and some were drug dealers collecting pills on behalf of dozens of people who were not present, prosecutors said.

Witnesses testified that Yusuf kept the pharmacy doors locked during business hours and admitted only certain customers, and that she kept dispensing after repeated warnings from her employees and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

Co-defendant Saman Gimenez pleaded guilty to conspiracy and is scheduled to be sentenced in October. Yusuf faces up to 20 years in prison on each count and is scheduled for sentencing Oct. 14, 2026.

Female ER physicians order more tests

The extra labs and imaging were just as likely to turn up something that mattered.

Female emergency physicians ordered 3% to 5% more laboratory and imaging tests and admitted 3% to 5% more patients than male physicians working in the same departments, according to a UCLA Health analysis published in JAMA Internal Medicine. Researchers reviewed more than 1.5 million emergency department visits by veterans, a setting the authors said allows a cleaner comparison because patients have little opportunity to choose their physician. The additional testing was just as likely to uncover important findings, and patients admitted by female physicians were no more likely to have short inpatient stays, a marker the team used for potentially unnecessary hospitalization.

The added care was not associated with lower mortality, either. "We found no differences in mortality from this additional care, but mortality rates don't tell the whole story," said lead author Dan Ly, assistant professor of medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and the VA Greater Los Angeles. The study is observational and cannot establish cause.