What counts as a 'named medical director'

A 'named medical director' under our rubric means three things: (1) a full name disclosed on the provider's website, (2) credentials (MD or DO with state of licensure), and (3) a verifiable license through the relevant state medical board's online portal.

This is the floor. It rules out the surprisingly large number of programs whose 'medical team' is depicted only through stock photography, or whose only named clinician is the founder who is not actually directing clinical practice.

We do not require the medical director to have a specific specialty (e.g., obesity medicine, endocrinology). GLP-1 therapy can be appropriately directed by a general internist, family physician, or other primary-care-aligned specialty.

We do not require the medical director to personally see every patient. The standard practice — a small team of practicing clinicians operating under documented protocols set by the medical director — is acceptable and arguably preferable, since it scales.

The pillar is worth 20 points of 100, the largest weight in the rubric. The choice is deliberate: the entire architecture of safe medication use rests on a clinical chain of responsibility. If there isn't a verifiable physician at the top of that chain, the rest of the program — pharmacy partner, lab integration, dose-titration protocol — does not have a person who is responsible for medical decisions.

A program without a named, verifiable medical director is a program that has decided not to take that responsibility. We score accordingly.