Pharmacy Transparency Scorecard

This is a research framework, not a provider, pharmacy, diagnostic tool, medical device, or medication ranking. You use it on the web to compare what online GLP-1 programs disclose across six areas: product identity, clinical review, dispensing pharmacy, total cost, continuing support, and data privacy. Review the provider’s main program page, pricing page, FAQs, terms, telehealth consent, privacy notice, and checkout disclosures. Record the URL and review date for every finding. The scorecard’s main advantage is consistency. Instead of reacting to a low headline price or polished testimonial, you ask the same questions of every company. Its main limit is equally important: good disclosure does not establish clinical quality, medication authenticity, or safety. The framework cannot inspect a pharmacy, test a product, confirm how care works in practice, or decide whether treatment is appropriate for you. It also has no FDA clearance or device-validation status because it is an editorial checklist, not a medical product. Provider websites and patient logs are not diagnostic. Eligibility, prescribing, monitoring, and medication changes belong with a licensed clinician who knows your health history.

Start by identifying exactly what the program may provide. Record whether its public materials discuss an FDA-approved brand, a compounded medication, or multiple pathways. Do not treat phrases such as “personalized,” “generic,” or “alternative” as a product identity. FDA states that compounded drugs are not FDA-approved and are not reviewed before marketing for safety, effectiveness, or quality. That distinction should be visible wherever a provider discusses compounded GLP-1 products. Next, determine who reviews your information and makes the prescribing decision. A questionnaire may support an evaluation, but it does not by itself explain clinician review, licensing, communication, or follow-up. Then look for the dispensing pharmacy’s legal name. If pharmacy assignment varies by state or availability, the provider should explain when you will receive the name and how you can contact the pharmacy. Check the pharmacy in the relevant state board database and compare its name, address, and license status with the provider’s disclosure. FDA BeSafeRx also says a safe online pharmacy should require a prescription, provide U.S. contact information, employ a licensed pharmacist who can answer questions, and hold state-board licensure. These checks improve verification, but they do not independently prove product quality or program safety.

Treat every advertised price as one line in a cost worksheet, not necessarily the monthly total. Check whether it covers clinical intake, recurring membership, medication, shipping, required laboratory work, follow-up visits, refills, supplies, insurance support, and higher doses. Record introductory and continuing prices separately, along with any prepayment period. Ro’s official pricing page, for example, explicitly separates its membership fee from medication costs, illustrating why comparisons need more than one price field; this example does not establish how another provider bills. Read the applicable terms and checkout language before paying. Determine when charges begin, whether a subscription renews automatically, how cancellation works, and whether prepaid amounts are refundable. Ask what happens if the clinician determines that medication is inappropriate, insurance denies coverage, the assigned pharmacy cannot fill the prescription, or you stop the program. “Insurance support” does not mean that treatment is covered, and an advertised medication price may not include the platform’s care fee. A strong result gives you enough information to estimate the first payment and a realistic ongoing total. If an important charge depends on eligibility, medication, dose, insurance, state, or pharmacy, rate the price as partial and describe the condition instead of inventing a number.

Transparency after checkout matters because prescribing is only one part of ongoing care. The provider should explain how follow-up works, how often you complete check-ins, who reviews progress, and what must happen before a refill. Look for a practical route to the prescribing clinician for treatment questions and a separate route to the pharmacy for dispensing, storage, shipping, or label questions. Customer support may help with billing, but a general inbox is not necessarily clinical or pharmacist access. Document how the program handles side-effect reports, urgent concerns, missed or delayed shipments, damaged packaging, medication availability, and care transitions. FDA advises patients with questions about an unapproved GLP-1 product to contact the compounder or telehealth platform and recommends obtaining prescriptions from a doctor and filling them through a state-licensed pharmacy. The scorecard should evaluate whether those contact paths are visible before enrollment, not promise how quickly or effectively a company will respond. This category is also where you record continuity limits: state availability, clinician changes, pharmacy substitutions, refill deadlines, insurance reauthorization, or requirements for new laboratory work. A clear description helps you anticipate the process. It does not replace individualized monitoring, diagnose a symptom, or tell you whether to start, stop, or change medication.

Review privacy before entering an intake form, not only after creating an account. A telehealth provider may request identifiers, payment and insurance details, symptoms, medical history, prescriptions, height and weight, photographs, laboratory results, and communications. Its policy should explain why these data are used and whether they are disclosed to clinicians, pharmacies, laboratories, payment processors, fulfillment vendors, affiliates, analytics services, or advertising partners. Ro’s current policy is one provider-specific example: it lists health information among the data collected and describes disclosures to health care providers, pharmacies, service providers, affiliates, analytics, and advertising partners. Do not apply those terms to other companies without checking their policies. HIPAA should not be treated as a blanket answer. HHS explains that coverage depends on the relationship among the app, provider, covered entity, and business associate. The FTC likewise notes that many companies collecting health information are not covered by HIPAA, although other privacy and breach-notification rules may apply. The CravingWise scorecard itself is an educational web page, not a patient portal. CravingWise’s privacy policy says its site may collect form or quiz responses, newsletter details, analytics, and affiliate-click metadata, and asks users not to submit diagnoses, doses, laboratory results, or private medical records through public forms.

Use three descriptive ratings rather than implying more precision than the evidence supports. Mark a field Clear when the provider states the answer directly, applicable conditions are visible, and independently checkable details—such as a pharmacy license—match. Mark it Partial when an answer exists but leaves out a material condition, timing detail, cost component, pharmacy identity, or data-sharing explanation. Mark it Not found only after checking the documented set of official pages. That label means you could not locate the information; it is not an accusation or proof of misconduct. Keep marketing review separate from operational facts. Testimonials, celebrity appearances, and dramatic results do not establish what a typical patient should expect. FTC guidance says health-related advertising must be truthful, not misleading, and supported by appropriate scientific evidence. Record prominent guarantees, implied equivalence between compounded and FDA-approved products, minimized risks, and disclosures that are difficult to find. You are evaluating the net clarity of the message, not deciding whether an advertisement violates the law. Publish the URLs, access date, unresolved questions, and any written provider response. Do not silently convert unknowns into negative facts or award invented numerical weights. Recheck pharmacy partners, pricing, medication availability, terms, and privacy policies before each update because a scorecard is only as useful as its source date.