A customer-centric approach to weight health

At a recent Conference Board event, leaders from Amazon and 9amHealth shared how they’re approaching weight management benefits with a focus on integration, equity, and long-term impact. Their discussion offered a practical framework rooted in real-world challenges and opportunities for benefits professionals looking to improve employee access and experience.

Looking beyond BMI to understand risk

The session opened with a shared acknowledgment that BMI alone doesn’t give the full picture of metabolic risk. Both organizations emphasized the importance of using additional measures, like waist circumference and waist-to-hip ratio, to better assess health status.

More broadly, they discussed how weight impacts daily functioning, not just through chronic conditions like diabetes or high blood pressure, but also through mobility issues, breathing challenges, and lesser-recognized conditions like depression or metabolic-associated liver dysfunction (fatty infiltration of the liver). In many cases, individuals have undiagnosed health issues, often because past experiences with stigma have made them avoid seeking care

Recognizing the gaps in lifestyle support

While lifestyle changes prove to be a foundational part of managing weight and metabolic health, access remains limited. Most primary care providers lack the time or resources to support sustained behavior change, and registered dietitians are often out of network, particularly in rural areas.

Amazon shared how it addressed these challenges by designing a benefit through 9amHealth that offers consistent access to a multi-disciplinary care team, available virtually in all 50 states. The 9amHealth Care Team includes physicians, pharmacists, and dietitians trained in obesity care, working together to deliver support that goes beyond a single treatment or visit.

Importantly, Amazon emphasized that its program does not require employees to repeat previous lifestyle programs before becoming eligible for further treatment. The goal is to meet each person where they are in their health journey.

Coordinating care across the ecosystem

Both Amazon and 9amHealth stressed the value of integration across specialties, systems, and care experiences. Their approach aims to reduce the complexity that employees often encounter when navigating weight care programs.

That includes:

• Clear referral pathways
• Avoiding duplicate assessments across different vendors
• Offering member choice (virtual or in-person care)
• Ensuring alignment with other employer-sponsored benefits

A clinically grounded, personalized approach

9amHealth described its care model as rooted in clinical obesity medicine, not cosmetic weight loss. This includes:

• Comprehensive lab testing to uncover underlying conditions
• Personalized prescribing–ranging from lifestyle-based care and generic medications to GLP-1s or bariatric surgery referrals when appropriate
• Tailored nutrition and exercise support, including custom meal planning tools
  
  

Notably, 9amHealth’s Care Team can prescribe for metabolic conditions beyond obesity, such as diabetes, hypertension, or lipid disorders, enabling a more holistic care plan for each member.

"Among new members recently joining their weight health program, nearly 10% were found to have previously undiagnosed prediabetes and diabetes. This finding illustrates how programs like 9amHealth can help identify and address broader health risks early."

-Dr. Avantika Waring, MD, Chief Medical Officer at 9amHealth

Focusing on equity and inclusion

A key theme from both Amazon and 9amHealth was ensuring that weight care benefits are designed to serve diverse populations. That includes:

• Cultural preferences around food and care
• Financial considerations
  Geographic limitations
• Individual readiness and previous experience with weight management
  
  

By building in flexibility and analyzing member data for health equity gaps, they aim to reach individuals who may have been underserved in traditional care models.

What does this mean for your benefits strategy? 

For organizations reviewing or updating their weight health offerings, several considerations emerged from the conversation:

• Weight care can be an entry point to broader health support, especially for members with comorbidities.
  
  
• A well-designed benefit integrates lifestyle coaching, clinical care, and appropriate prescribing, without requiring people to navigate multiple systems.
  
  
• Offering virtual, scalable options can help bridge access gaps, especially across a geographically distributed workforce.
  
  
• A thoughtful, inclusive approach may encourage participation from employees who have felt overlooked or discouraged in the past.
  
  

Conclusion 

Amazon and 9amHealth’s shared approach demonstrates how benefits can evolve to better reflect the complexity of weight health and the diversity of employee needs. By prioritizing integration, personalization, and accessibility, they’ve created a model that may be a helpful reference point for other employers exploring new ways to support whole-person care.