Ecommerce OS · Telehealth6 min readUpdated November 2, 2026

Memberships for Telehealth Companies

Four telehealth membership models, what to include and bill separately, the rules for recurring fees and cancellation, and how to set it up.

Nick Bonnassies, CMO at Tagada · checked against 10 sources

Article summary

TL;DR

Telehealth brands use four models: pay per visit, a membership for access with visits or treatment billed apart, an all-in plan, and a treatment subscription without membership. A paid membership is a recurring charge, so it needs clear terms before billing, express consent and easy online cancellation. The FTC has acted against telehealth companies on exactly that.

Amazon One Medical charges Prime members "$99/yr", includes on-demand virtual care, and bills scheduled visits "separately to you or your insurance" (read November 2, 2026).
Stripe lists "negative option membership clubs" with "unclear or hidden pricing" among the practices it does not support (read November 2, 2026).
ROSCA requires clear terms, express consent and "simple mechanisms" to stop recurring charges.
In 2024, Cerebral agreed to pay over $7 million in total after the FTC said it promised "cancel anytime" but ran a "complex, multi-step, and often multi-day" cancellation process.
California requires online cancellation for online sign-ups and an annual reminder for contracts made since July 1, 2025.

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This guide is part of our playbook on the best ecommerce platform for telehealth companies. The general guide, for any store: subscription payments. Refills and renewals are covered in subscription billing for telehealth companies.

Four membership models

Model	What the patient pays	Example or fit	Main risk
Pay per visit	A fee per consultation, no recurring charge	One Medical pay-per-visit, "starting at $29 for a messaging only visit or $49 for a video visit"1	NoRecurring revenue; each visit is a new sale
Access membership	A monthly or yearly fee for access; some visits or treatment billed apart	One Medical: yearly fee, on-demand care included, scheduled visits billed separately1	Patients confuse what the fee covers
All-in plan	One recurring price for visits, messaging and follow-ups	Brands with one main service and steady follow-ups	Hard to price; cancellations when needs stop
Treatment subscription, no membership	A charge per shipment of the treatment the clinician prescribed	Brands centered on one ongoing treatment plan	Must never start before the clinician approves

Pay per visit
A fee per consultation, no recurring charge. Each visit is a new sale.
Access membership
A monthly or yearly fee for access; some visits or treatment billed apart.
All-in plan
One recurring price for visits, messaging and follow-ups.
Treatment subscription
A charge per shipment of the treatment the clinician prescribed. Must never start before the clinician approves.

Most brands mix two: a membership or plan for access, and treatment billed when it ships. Keep the line between them visible on every page.

What goes in the membership, and what is billed apart

Usually in the membership	Usually billed apart
Messaging with the care team	Prescription medication, billed when it ships
Follow-up visits on a set schedule	Visits beyond the included number
Refill requests reviewed by a clinician	Labs or services from third parties
Member pricing on non-prescription items	Shipping upgrades
Priority support for account and billing questions	Anything the clinician adds after review

Never sell a membership perk as access to a specific medication or a guaranteed prescription. The clinician decides, case by case.

Offer a no-membership option too

Next to "telehealth membership", Google suggests "telehealth without membership" and "telehealth no subscription" (US autocomplete, November 2, 2026): patients look for both. A pay-per-visit option next to the membership answers that demand and makes the membership a choice, not a condition.

It also lowers dispute risk: a patient who only wanted one visit and finds a recurring charge is a likely chargeback.

Fig. 1The patient who only wanted one visit

Membership only

PatientWants one visit
thenRecurring chargeFound on the statementDeclined

A likely chargeback

Pay per visit next to the membership

PatientWants one visit
choosesPay per visitA fee per consultationApproved

The membership is a choice, not a condition

Same patient, one option apart.

Illustrative example.

Rules for a paid membership

$29

One Medical pay-per-visit, starting price for a messaging only visit

7 days

Visa notice before the full price starts after an introductory offer

3 years

How long California requires proof of consent to be kept

Show the terms before billing details: price, frequency, what's included, renewal date, how to cancel. ROSCA requires material terms before obtaining billing information3.
Get express consent with an unchecked box or a button that names the recurring charge.
Cancel online, as easily as joining. California requires it for online sign-ups, plus an annual reminder and proof of consent kept 3 years5.
Introductory price or free first month: Visa requires a notice at least 7 days before the full price starts, and online cancellation6.
No membership before review if it is tied to treatment. The FTC alleges Hims & Hers enrolled consumers in treatment subscriptions "shortly after receiving consumers' intake forms"7.
Keep the processor informed. Stripe doesn't support negative option membership clubs with unclear pricing2; clear terms are what make a membership acceptable.

Clear terms are what make a membership acceptable to patients and processors.

Watch out

"Cancel anytime" is a promise you must keep in the product. Cerebral's settlement came after the FTC said its cancellation took several steps and often several days4.

The cancellation rules state by state: subscription cancellations without breaking state rules.

Set it up in your stack

Create the membership as its own plan, separate from the treatment subscription, with its own price and cycle.
Write the member terms in one block reused on the landing page, checkout and confirmation email.
Connect the customer portal so members can pause, skip or cancel without contacting support.
Set retries for failed renewals and a card update link: failed payment recovery for telehealth companies.
Send the reminders your states require (annual reminder, price change notice).
Keep billing data free of health data: name the plan "Membership", not after a condition.

Fig. 2The membership as its own plan

Plan · MembershipSeparate from the treatment subscription

Price and cycle: Its own, not the treatment's
Member terms: One block: landing page, checkout, confirmation email
Customer portal: Pause, skip or cancel without support
Failed renewal: Retries and a card update link
Reminders: Annual reminder, price change notice

Illustrative record.

Named Membership, not after a condition.

Illustrative example.

Measure your membership

Metric	Formula	What it tells you
Membership take rate	Members ÷ new patients	Does the offer make sense?
Monthly member churn	Cancelled ÷ members at start of month	Do members stay?
Usage per member	Visits or messages ÷ members	Is the fee earning its keep for the patient?
Revenue per member	Membership + other revenue ÷ members	Total value
Disputes on membership charges	Disputes ÷ membership charges	Do members recognize the charge?

Low usage with high retention looks good today and becomes a cancellation wave later. When to sell on subscription, and how to keep subscribers: subscriptions and churn for telehealth companies.

How Tagada helps

Member billing with the terms, the portal and the retries built in

Tagada bills memberships as subscriptions, with cancellation and pauses handled in a customer portal8, and TagadaPay adds "native 3DS2, device intelligence, and rules engine"10, with "enhanced review for regulated verticals".

Subscriptions with trials, cycles, retries and automatic recovery
A customer portal where patients can "skip, pause, change frequency, swap product, cancel with your retention offers"8; by default, cancellation takes effect at the end of the paid period8
Pauses capped by you, "90 days by default"8
Apple Pay and Google Pay, and routing across processors with a cascade to another processor when one is down or times out
Your vault, portable: "Switch processors without re-onboarding customers"

Building the whole telehealth brand? Tagada Rx runs "Storefront, doctors, pharmacy and payments in one stack", with "Patient inbox, refills, email and SMS"9. US patients only, by selection.

Tagada follows Visa and Mastercard rules and the laws that apply to payments.

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Member billing with the terms, the portal and the retries built in

Updated on November 2, 2026

Nick Bonnassies

CMO at Tagada

CMO at Tagada. Before Tagada, Nick built direct-to-consumer brands that generated over $115M in sales, raised over $25M in crowdfunding and sold two of them. He also works as a fractional CMO on marketing operations and AI systems.

Frequently asked questions

What is a telehealth membership?

A recurring fee, monthly or yearly, that gives a patient access to a telehealth service: messaging, some visits, refill requests, member pricing. It is not insurance. Treatment and extra visits are often billed separately, as in One Medical's model where scheduled visits are billed apart from the membership.

Should a telehealth brand offer a membership or charge per visit?

Offer both if you can. A membership suits patients who need regular follow-ups; per visit suits one-off needs, and patients actively search for "telehealth without membership". Offering both makes the membership a choice, which lowers refunds and disputes.

What rules apply to a telehealth membership fee?

Those of any recurring online charge: clear terms before billing, express consent and a simple way to cancel (ROSCA), plus state laws such as California's online cancellation and annual reminder, and Visa's notice before an introductory price ends.

Can a membership include prescription medication?

It can cover the clinical service around it, but the medication itself should only be billed after a clinician prescribes it. Selling access to a specific medication through a membership takes the decision away from the clinician. Bill treatment when it ships, as a separate line.

Sources

Checked November 2, 2026

Tagada

A membership patients choose, with terms they can read

Funnels, one-click upsells, subscription billing and payment routing, on one customer record.

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