Topline
The Federal Trade Commission, California and Utah have sued telehealth platform Hims & Hers Health for allegedly charging patients for prescription subscriptions without their consent and secretly sharing their sensitive health information with tech companies including Meta and Snap.
A smartphone displays the logo of Hims & Hers Health, Inc.
Getty Images
Key Facts
The federal complaint, filed in the Northern District of California Wednesday, alleges the company violated the FTC Act and the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act by charging consumers for prescription subscriptions without their knowledge, making those subscriptions difficult to cancel and misleading users about the privacy of their health data.
The complaint alleges Hims & Hers advertised “free” consultations and displayed “Pay $0 today” on its intake forms, then charged patients and enrolled them in recurring subscriptions as soon as a provider wrote a prescription—without giving them the chance to review or decline the treatment.
Customer complaints cited in the lawsuit include one person who said they were charged $897 before ever speaking to a healthcare professional and another who said they were charged $147 for a three-month supply of Lexapro after saying they were “open to” medication on an intake form.
Once a patient was charged for a prescription, the company made cancellation deliberately difficult, the lawsuit claims, burying the option behind an “Add/remove items from order” button that never used the word “cancel.”
Regulators allege Hims & Hers advertised monthly or quarterly refill schedules but actually processed refill charges 10 days earlier than consumers would reasonably expect, and customers had to cancel two days before that early processing date, making it easy to miss the deadline.
The company is also accused of sharing patients’ sensitive health information—including conditions like erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation and hair loss—with advertising platforms despite promising users the service was “100% online, private and secure,” per the complaint.
Hims & Hers called the claims “baseless” in a post on X and vowed to fight them, adding, “This is not enforcement grounded in consumer protection; it is an effort to generate headlines at our expense.”
Hims & Hers Health Inc stock plummeted more than 11% Wednesday after the lawsuit was announced.
BIG NUMBER
2.6 million. That’s how many people subscribe to Him & Hers for personal health, skin care, hair loss treatments and weight-loss management, according to the company’s first quarter results, up 9% year-over-year.
Key background
Hims & Hers Health operates as a subscriber-based telehealth platform offering prescription and wellness products, and has been closely watched as a major player in the market for compounded GLP-1 weight-loss medications. The company has faced scrutiny over its marketing and prescribing practices as regulators have intensified oversight of telehealth providers. The lawsuit could become one of the most significant consumer-protection cases in the telehealth space and could decide how online healthcare companies design patient intake forms, subscription billing, cancellation flows and advertising technology going forward.
What to watch for
Hims & Hers’ next earnings report is scheduled for Aug. 10.
TANGENT
Much of Hims & Hers marketing strategy centers on celebrity endorsement and influencer marketing. The company has partnered several high-profile celebrities as brand ambassadors and creative partners over the years, including Kristen Bell, Rob Gronkowski, Miley Cyrus and Alex Rodriguez. The FTC complaint notes that Hims has relied heavily on paid social media influencers, particularly on YouTube, and that some of those influencers described Hims’ services as “discreet,” reinforcing the company’s privacy-focused marketing.