How we score providers

Every telehealth on Weight Care Edit gets a Care & cost score from 0 to 100 for each drug it prescribes. A provider that offers tirzepatide and metformin gets two scores, because the price and the care can be different for each.

The score adds up four checks.

Price: 35 points

The figure we score is the real monthly cost for a new patient who pays month to month, at the starting dose:

• the month-to-month plan price, not a prepaid multi-month rate;
• plus any membership or platform fee you can't skip;
• with four-week billing counted as 13 charges a year, so $249 every four weeks scores as about $270 a month.

A first-month discount isn't the figure; the price after it is. Prepaid plans still appear in each review, because they can save real money if you're sure you'll stay.

Points come from a fixed dollar range for each drug. A real monthly cost at or below the low end of the range earns all 35 points, at or above the high end earns none, and anything between scales evenly. The ranges are printed below and change only with a dated method update, so a provider's price points don't move because someone else changed their price.

If a provider shows no price anywhere before payment, even after the intake questions, Price scores 0 and the review says so.

Care: 25 points

Five points each for:

1. Saying who prescribes: a named clinician or a named medical group licensed in your state.
2. A clinician reviewing your intake before a prescription is written.
3. Labs required or offered, with who pays for them stated.
4. A stated follow-up rhythm, like a monthly check-in or a check-in before each dose change.
5. Dose changes covered by your plan, without a new consult fee.

Pharmacy: 25 points

• 10 for naming the pharmacy that dispenses your medication.
• 5 for stating where that pharmacy is licensed, or whether it's a 503A or 503B pharmacy.
• 5 for making brand vs compounded clear on the product or pricing page.
• 5 for never calling a compounded drug "FDA-approved."

A compounded drug skips FDA approval, so no one at the FDA judges its safety, whether it works, or how well it was made before it ships. Knowing the pharmacy is how you look it up yourself.

Clarity: 15 points

Five points each for showing a price before the intake questions, publishing cancellation and refund terms, and publishing the states served.

Where the facts come from

Each score is built from the provider's own public website: its pricing and product pages, plan terms, FAQ, refund policy, state list and pharmacy information. Prices on promotional landing pages and in ads don't count, because they change week to week. Partner prices are refreshed at least every 60 days and everyone else's at least every 90.

When two of a provider's own pages show different prices, the score uses the higher one and the review tells you to confirm the second month at checkout.

How lineups are ordered

Every lineup is sorted by Care & cost score, highest first. Ties go to the provider with more Price points. When two providers still match on both numbers, a partner goes ahead of a non-partner, and otherwise alphabetical order decides. There's no other paid position inside the list and no manual reshuffle.

Inside the list, partners carry a small "Partner" label and a filled button. The first row's orange tint goes to the highest score, whoever earns it.

Above the list, a lineup can show a box headed "Partner programs" with one or two partners that are on that same lineup. They take turns there, each card prints the score and monthly price the list gives that provider, and every partner also keeps its own scored place in the list below.

What a partner can and can't change

A partner can ask for its pages to be looked at again after a real price or policy change, and send a fix with a link to its own public page, exactly as any provider can.

A partner can't change a check, a weight or a score, move up a lineup, see a score before it's published, or approve what a review says. A downside in a review comes off only when the provider fixes it on its own site.

What the score leaves out

• Whether a drug is right for you. That's a conversation with your clinician.
• How well a drug works, or how you'll feel on it.
• FDA warning letters. When the FDA has sent a letter to a provider's own brand, it's shown on that provider's review, so you can read it and judge for yourself. It doesn't add or subtract points.

When the method changes

If a weight, a check or a price range changes, this page gets a dated note explaining what moved and why, every affected score is recalculated at the same time, and the change is listed on the corrections log.

Revision of October 20, 2026. No check, weight or price range changed, so no score moved. Two things changed in how lineups are shown. A labeled Partner box can now sit above a lineup's list, where before a lineup had no partner area of any kind. And inside the list, a partner now goes first only when it ties another provider exactly, on both the total and the Price points.

A second revision the same day. Two price ranges moved and one lineup was added. One provider's month-to-month tirzepatide and dissolvable-tablet prices were confirmed as monthly prices, so they now count toward the ranges: the top of the compounded tirzepatide range rose by ten dollars and the top of the GLP-1 pill range by twenty. Every score on those two lineups was recalculated from the data at the same time. A new lineup also scores programs that prescribe brand Wegovy or Zepbound injections at a self-pay price, with its own price range computed the same way as the others.