Telehealth Checkout Review After Hims & Hers: Subscription Consent, Billing, and Cancellation

Last updated: October 27, 2026 · By Jason Garrett, Founder, Coast Studio. Not legal advice — review claims with counsel.

Short answer: "negative option" is the FTC's term for a subscription that keeps billing until the customer acts to stop it. Many GLP-1, hair-loss, ED, and skincare telehealth brands run one. The FTC's click-to-cancel rule was vacated in July 2025, so the rules that bind you now are ROSCA, Section 5 of the FTC Act, and the state auto-renewal laws. The FTC, California, and Utah complaint against Hims & Hers (July 2026) shows how those rules get applied to a telehealth funnel, and it reads the ad, the intake, and the billing as one path. That is how we review it too.

Other counts concern sharing health data with Meta, Snap, and other platforms through pixels and the Conversions API. That is covered on the FTC health-data page and the telehealth tracking guide.

Where the ad is part of the problem

The FTC pleaded the intake and the ad promise together. A "free consultation" that becomes a charged subscription at approval, an ad price that does not match the renewal price, and a quiz that collects the card before the terms are shown are advertising claims as well as checkout claims. In a paid funnel the ad sets the expectation the checkout has to honor, so the review starts at the ad: what was promised, what the landing page repeats, and what the customer is told before the card field. Ad and landing-page promises often create the expectations the checkout must satisfy.

What Hims & Hers is accused of

The subscription allegations, as pleaded in the FTC complaint (Hims denies them and is defending):

• A "Pay $0 today" checkout with the renewal price and term in small, low-contrast type below the button.
• Charging and enrolling the customer in auto-renewal once a prescription issued, often without a provider conversation.
• Charging the first refill about ten days before the cadence the customer selected, with cancellation required two days before the refill date.
• Three to ten survey screens between the customer and cancellation, with the cancel control placed behind an "add or remove items" step.
• Pleading the data sharing itself as an undisclosed material term of the subscription, which ties the privacy counts to the ROSCA counts.

The complaint combines federal intake and subscription counts with overlapping California and Utah counts. It describes past practices, so check the dates it gives before citing any one as current. Each of those patterns is common in telehealth checkouts we audit.

The rules in force

1. ROSCA (15 U.S.C. §8403). Three requirements: clearly and conspicuously disclose all material terms before obtaining billing information, obtain the consumer's express informed consent, and provide a simple mechanism to stop recurring charges. The FTC's 2025–2026 ROSCA actions include Amazon Prime ($1 billion penalty plus $1.5 billion in refunds) and a GLP-1 telehealth company, NextMed, ordered in December 2025 to disclose cancellation and refund terms before payment and provide simple cancellation.
2. The FTC's click-to-cancel rule was vacated by the Eighth Circuit on July 8, 2025. The FTC chose a new rulemaking over an appeal and published an advance notice in March 2026; nothing from it is in force. The 1973 prenotification rule was reinstated and does not reach most telehealth plans.
3. California's auto-renewal law (Bus. & Prof. Code §17600 et seq., amended by AB 2863, applying to contracts entered into, amended, or extended on or after July 1, 2025) for any contract with a California customer. Consent: terms disclosed in visual proximity to the consent request, and the customer's express affirmative consent to the renewal terms. Records: consent verification kept for three years or one year after the contract ends, whichever is longer, plus a retainable acknowledgment with the cancellation method. Cancellation: online cancellation for online sign-ups through a prominent link with no obstruction, and a "click to cancel" option shown beside any save offer. Notices: a fee change 7 to 30 days before it takes effect, an annual reminder, a renewal notice 15 to 45 days ahead for initial terms of a year or longer, and a notice 3 to 21 days before a free or discounted period ends if that period runs longer than 31 days.
4. New York (GBL §527-a as amended, effective November 5, 2025): cancellation as easy as sign-up and available through every medium the business uses to take consent, disclosure of charges and frequency before consent, notice of material changes, including price increases, 5 business days to 30 days ahead, plus affirmative consent to a price increase or a 14-day window to cancel for a prorated refund that runs from the first charge at the higher price, and a renewal notice 15 to 45 days before the cancellation deadline when an initial term of a year or longer renews for six months or longer.

How we review the path

The review walks the funnel in the order a customer meets it and checks each step against the rules above. It is a scoped review, and counsel decides what the final copy must say.

The ad and landing page. Does the price in the ad match the first charge and the renewal price? Does "free" or "$0 today" appear anywhere the recurring price does not appear beside it at the same size and contrast? (That treatment is our recommendation; the requirement is clear and conspicuous disclosure.) Does the landing page repeat the promise the ad made?

Before the card field. Price per cycle, billing frequency, when the first charge happens (for telehealth, "on prescription approval" is the moment to name), the renewal term, refill timing and the cancel cutoff before each refill, at least one cancellation method, and any sharing of the customer's data with advertising platforms.

At the consent point. Are the terms in visual proximity to the button? Does the renewal get its own consent step? (California requires express affirmative consent to the renewal terms; an unchecked checkbox or a separate button is our recommended way to show it, and the enacted text does not require a separate step.) Is the consent logged with a timestamp and the terms as shown?

After purchase. A retainable email with the terms and a cancel link. Notice of any price change (7 to 30 days before it takes effect in California; 5 business days to 30 days in New York). An annual reminder. Renewal and trial-expiry notices where the state law requires them.

Cancellation. One prominent link in account settings that works immediately, in the same medium the customer signed up in. No survey gates. In California, a save offer only with a "click to cancel" option beside it.

Does the flow match what was promised? The last check is the one the complaint turns on: whether the charge, the refill timing, and the cancellation the customer actually experiences match the disclosure they consented to.

FAQ

Is click-to-cancel the law?
Not as an FTC rule. ROSCA already requires a simple cancellation mechanism, and California and New York require online cancellation that is as easy as sign-up.

We bill on prescription approval. Is that the problem?
The questions are whether the customer was told before entering a card that approval triggers the charge and the renewal, whether they gave express informed consent to it, and whether what happens afterward matches. The Hims allegation is that customers were not told and were enrolled without a provider conversation.

Does this apply if we have no California customers?
ROSCA applies to online negative-option sales in every state. New York, Virginia, and many other states have their own laws, and the FTC has brought cases with state attorneys general as co-plaintiffs.

Is a save offer at cancellation allowed?
Yes. California requires a "click to cancel" option beside it; everywhere else the cancel path still has to be simple. Survey screens that must be completed to reach the cancel control are what the complaint describes.

Not legal advice. This page summarizes public complaints and statutes; your counsel decides what your checkout must say.

Review the ad-to-checkout path

We walk the path from the ad claim to the cancellation screen against ROSCA, the state laws above, and the Hims complaint, and deliver the findings and fix list alongside the tracking review in one report, so the creative, the funnel, and the measurement get fixed together.

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