The Subscription Trap in Telemedicine

A Transparent Look at How Telemedicine Really Works

Let me pull back the curtain on how the telemedicine industry actually works so you can understand why almost every major company pushes subscriptions. I want to be completely frank and transparent so you know exactly what is happening behind the scenes.

⸻

Why Subscriptions Exist

When any telemedicine company brings on a new customer, a medical case is created. That case must be reviewed by a licensed medical provider, and the provider is compensated for that visit immediately. If a prescription is issued, that prescription is usually valid for one full year. In other words, the company takes on its biggest expenses on day one. They pay to acquire the customer and they pay the doctor for the initial review, but they only earn money on repeat medication shipments. The initial visit is a cost center, not a profit center.

According to industry reports, the mainstream telemedicine brands you see advertising everywhere spend hundreds of dollars just to acquire one new customer. They also have to pay a medical provider to review your case the moment you sign up. On top of that, they often offer a heavily discounted first month so that you do not see the true price of the medication until later. That discount is not generosity, it is strategy. Their entire business model depends on locking you into a subscription before you understand the real long term cost.

This is why subscriptions exist. The subscription is the product. Without it, their business model collapses. The ads you saw on Instagram, the influencers promoting them, the coupons, the branding, all of that only works if they recover their massive customer acquisition cost through automatic monthly charges.

⸻

Avoiding the Trap

You must be smarter than average to avoid this. If a company promises you generic ED medication for eighty nine cents a tablet, that price is impossible. Not even the initial shipment will end up that cheap once you include shipping and fees, but the real problem shows up thirty days later when the second charge hits your card at three or four times the cost of buying the same medication at a fair, transparent price. That initial discount was never the real price. It was the bait.

Most people believe they are great at managing subscriptions. Many also believe they never forget to cancel anything. But the data is clear. Subscriptions are one of the easiest ways for a company to double its revenue because human beings are human. People get busy. Cards get updated. Emails get missed. Renewals go through quietly. Companies know this. The subscription is not designed to serve you. It is designed to serve them.

⸻

Why Shameless Care Doesn’t Do Subscriptions

So why did Shameless Care eliminate subscriptions entirely? In the early days, we offered them because everyone else did. But we learned quickly that many recurring payments were failing due to insufficient funds. That raised a serious question. What would have happened if those payments had gone through? Would that customer have ended up with a negative bank balance or overdraft fees because of us? That did not sit right. We removed subscriptions because they were the wrong thing to do, both ethically and practically.

We also do not need them. Our customers are smart. They understand that we offer the best value, transparent pricing, and exceptional customer service. They choose to reorder with us because they want to, not because we trapped them in an auto billing cycle.

⸻

What to Remember

In summary, when you purchase medication from a telemedicine company advertising heavily online, remember this. That company has spent hundreds of dollars just to get you to click. They pay a doctor immediately to review your case. They have invested well over five hundred dollars in you before you receive your first shipment because they know your subscription will quietly repay that cost many times over through charges you may not even notice.

At Shameless Care, we chose a different path. No subscriptions. No tricks. No auto billing. Just honesty, transparency, and pricing that respects you.