Ten Questions to Ask Your Doctor Before Starting a GLP-1

The person best placed to judge whether any medication fits you is a licensed clinician who knows your history. What you can do beforehand is arrive with better questions. Bring this list, or a version of it in your own words, and take notes on the answers.

What you can do beforehand is arrive with better questions.

1. Given my full medical history, do I meet the criteria for this class of medication?

   Eligibility is assessed against specific clinical criteria — your diagnoses, recorded measurements, lab results, and what you have already tried — not against how well a medication appears to be working for someone you know. Asking directly brings the reasoning into the open, so you learn which criteria you meet and which you don't. If the answer is no, the useful follow-up is what would need to change, and what else your clinician considers appropriate.

2. Is there anything in my personal or family history that would rule this out or make it riskier for me?

   This class carries contraindications and warnings that depend on history rather than on how you feel today. Ask specifically about personal or family history of medullary thyroid carcinoma and multiple endocrine neoplasia syndrome type 2, and about any history of pancreatitis, gallbladder disease, kidney disease, severe gastrointestinal conditions such as gastroparesis, diabetic retinopathy, eating disorders, and any possibility of pregnancy or plans to become pregnant. Family history matters here, not only your own, so go through it explicitly rather than assuming your chart is complete.

   Bring a full list of your current prescriptions, over-the-counter products, and supplements to the same conversation, and ask what interacts — slowed stomach emptying can affect how other oral medications are absorbed, and some combinations require other doses to be adjusted.

3. Which specific product and formulation fits my situation, and why that one?

   Products in and adjacent to this class differ in dosing schedule, route, approved indications, and warnings — some are weekly injections, some daily, and at least one is an oral tablet with strict instructions about food and water. The choice depends on your diagnosis, your other conditions, injection comfort, and what your coverage will actually pay for. Asking "why this one rather than another" tells you what trade-off is being made on your behalf.

4. What will the insurance process involve, and who handles it?

   Coverage in this category commonly requires prior authorization, and approval often depends on the diagnosis code submitted, documented clinical criteria, and whether a step-therapy requirement applies. Ask what your clinician's office will submit, what documentation they need from you, roughly how long a decision takes, and what happens if it's denied — including whether they will file an appeal. Also worth asking: how long an approval lasts and what's needed to renew it. Our guide to insurance and cash-pay routes covers what to ask your insurer separately.

5. What monitoring and follow-up will this involve?

   Treatment is not only the prescription. It typically includes scheduled follow-up and, depending on your situation, laboratory work and tracking of specific measurements. Establishing that schedule at the start tells you what the real time and cost commitment is, and makes it obvious if something is being skipped. Ask who is responsible for ordering and reviewing each item — this matters particularly if a telehealth service and your regular clinician are both involved.

6. What does the titration schedule look like, and how will we decide when to move up?

   Medications in this class are normally started at a low dose and increased in steps over weeks, largely so that gastrointestinal effects have time to settle. Knowing the planned schedule in advance tells you what a normal course looks like, and prevents you from reading a deliberately low starting dose as a sign that nothing is happening. Ask what the plan is if a step is poorly tolerated — whether you hold at the current dose, slow the schedule, or step back down.

7. Which side effects should I expect, and at what point should I call you?

   Gastrointestinal effects are the most commonly reported in this class, and clinicians have practical strategies they routinely suggest for managing them. Getting that guidance up front — together with the specific threshold at which you should call rather than push through — is considerably more useful than searching for it at 2am. Ask which symptoms warrant an urgent call or emergency care rather than a routine message, and what the fastest way to reach someone is out of hours.

8. How will we judge whether this is working, and over what timeframe?

   Ask what your clinician will actually be measuring, what interval they will assess it over, and what result would count as an adequate response for someone in your situation. Defining that in advance gives you a shared standard rather than a moving one, and it makes the reverse conversation possible too: what would tell you this isn't working well enough to continue. Ask which measures matter beyond the number on the scale — lab values, blood pressure, symptoms, how you function day to day.

9. What happens if I stop — and under what circumstances would we plan to?

   The conditions this class treats are generally chronic, and treatment is usually discussed as ongoing rather than as a fixed course, so it's worth asking what your clinician expects to happen to the effects you were treating if the medication stops. Ask what stopping looks like in practice — whether it's tapered, what follow-up should happen afterwards, and what would prompt them to restart. Ask too what the explicit criteria for stopping would be: side effects that don't resolve, an inadequate response, or a change in your health. Never stop, restart, or change a dose on your own without speaking to your prescriber.

10. How does this fit into a broader plan for my metabolic health?

    These medications are approved for use alongside diet and activity, not instead of them, and the conditions they treat generally involve more than one lever. Ask what else your clinician recommends addressing — nutrition, activity and resistance training, sleep, other medications, related conditions being managed elsewhere — and whether a referral to a dietitian, an endocrinologist, or another specialist would be useful. Ask which parts of the plan they consider most important if the medication turns out not to be an option for you.