GLP-1 program coordinator. Compounding pharmacy liaison. Telehealth compliance officer. None of those titles existed on most hospital org charts five years ago, and now they are the first hires founders make when they launch a direct-to-consumer health brand.
That is the view of Chad Heidt, Co Founder at Karpa Health, which builds white-label telehealth platforms for founders selling weight loss, hormone and peptide programs online. Chad spends most of his week on calls with people who are either launching a brand or trying to grow one, and he said the hiring questions have changed.
“Now it's operations. Who's going to manage 3,000 patients on a weekly injection schedule? Who talks to the pharmacy when a batch is delayed? That's a job. It's a full-time job.”
Chad Heidt, Co Founder, Karpa Health
“Two years ago the question was always about doctors. Where do I find prescribers, how many do I need,” he said. “Now it's operations. Who's going to manage 3,000 patients on a weekly injection schedule? Who talks to the pharmacy when a batch is delayed? That's a job. It's a full-time job.”
Demand is not hypothetical. KFF's May 2024 Health Tracking Poll found about one in eight US adults said they had taken a GLP-1 drug at some point.
The GLP-1 program coordinator is the role Chad sees posted most often. It is part care navigator, part logistics. “You're checking in on side effects, chasing refills, making sure the dose titration happens on time. Nurses are perfect for it. Medical assistants too. You'd be surprised how many people doing this came from a retail pharmacy counter, because they already know the drugs and they already know how to calm somebody down who's annoyed.”
The compounding pharmacy liaison sits between the brand and the 503A or 503B pharmacy filling its orders. Chad said this is where most startups get burned. “I watched a brand lose a month of revenue because nobody owned the pharmacy relationship. Shipping stalled, patients canceled, and the founder was finding out from Reddit. Somebody has to live in that spreadsheet every day.”
Compliance is the third hire, and the one founders resist. “Everyone wants to skip it until they get the letter,” Chad said. Telehealth compliance officers handle state licensing rules, prescribing standards and advertising claims, and Chad said he sees paralegals and former medical board staff moving into the role. In his experience it is the best-paid of the five, closer to legal salaries than clinical ones.
Two newer titles are showing up this year. AI patient-experience specialists tune the chat and intake tools patients use before they ever see a clinician. “It's not a coder job. It's somebody who reads 500 patient messages a week and fixes the bot's answers. Customer support people from tech layoffs do well here.” Virtual care operations managers run the whole machine, and Chad said med spa managers and aesthetics clinic staff are the ones getting hired because they already run a cash-pay patient business.
His advice for career changers is blunt. Learn the drug names, learn the state rules for one state, and apply to brands with fewer than 20 staff. “Small brands can't afford specialists, so they hire a generalist with a nursing license or a pharmacy background and let them grow into it. That's the way in.”
He is less patient with people who dismiss the sector as a fad. “People say GLP-1 is a bubble. Fine. The infrastructure isn't. The coordinators, the pharmacy people, the compliance folks, they'll be running hormone programs and sleep programs next. The medication changes. The job stays.”
Sources & Resources
- Karpa Health - White-label telehealth platforms for health brand founders.
- KFF, Health Tracking Poll: Public Awareness and Use of GLP-1 Drugs, May 2024.
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