The Rise of Turnkey Telehealth
In May 2026, JustAnswer made an unexpected pivot: it began selling weight loss drugs. The company, known for paid expert guidance, launched an online pharmacy to peddle GLP-1s like semaglutide and tirzepatide. CEO Andy Kurtzig says the decision was partly driven by ChatGPT advice and a surge in customer interest—queries about GLP-1s more than doubled between 2024 and 2025. JustAnswer did not build the system from scratch; it relied on WhiteLabelMD, a company that handles customer service, provides software, and connects patients with prescribing clinicians.
This partnership exemplifies a booming trend: turnkey telehealth services that allow anyone to open a virtual clinic. These middlemen supply ready-built software, physician rosters, and regulatory scaffolding, enabling rapid market entry. Fuse Health, a newer turnkey startup specializing in peptides, boasts brands can go live in three hours. “Yes, we timed it,” its website reads.
How It Works
Turnkey companies like OpenLoop, CareValidate, and WhiteLabelMD do the heavy lifting. OpenLoop, a major player, supplies erectile dysfunction medication, the peptide Sermorelin, and GLP-1 drugs to clients like the gay dating app Grindr. CareValidate, led by Chief Medical Officer Jiten Chhabra, creates topic-specific guides for popular verticals including GLP-1s, peptides, prescription skin care, and hormone replacement therapy. Chhabra describes the current era as “telehealth for everything.” The company works with fitness centers, Bodybuilding.com, a cosmetics brand, and a company that rents out chairs to hairdressers. One client with a digital marketing background launched a virtual clinic for onychomycosis—toe fungus—despite having no clinical experience. “They know there’s demand online,” Chhabra says. CareValidate launches at least one new brand per day.
Who’s Getting In? From Grindr to Influencers
Scott Roth, CEO of LegitScript (a certification provider for telehealth and pharmacies), says, “Anyone who has an audience could potentially get into this—a gym, an influencer, you name it.” Reality TV star and MAGA podcaster Savannah Chrisley started Good Girl RX in 2025, focusing on GLP-1s. Its FAQ references Beluga Health, another turnkey company. The GLP-1 clinic Medvi used turnkey services to surpass $400 million in sales in 2025 without ever hiring a healthcare professional—its founder previously worked in wristwatch-focused ecommerce. Medvi received a February FDA warning letter and faced an April class action lawsuit alleging Telephone Consumer Protection Act violations; it also has an F rating from the Better Business Bureau. Medvi did not respond to WIRED’s requests for comment. GoodGirl RX also received an FDA warning letter for allegedly making “false or misleading” claims.
Quality and Regulatory Concerns
The explosion of online clinics has created a wide quality spectrum. Sabina Hemmi, CEO of GLP Winner (a startup comparing GLP-1 providers), says she no longer tracks new startups because there are too many. She notes a rise of “vibe-coded sites” and “marketing bros” who see profit opportunities but lack interest in medicine or customer experience. Hemmi calls it the “Temu experience of telehealth,” referring to the notoriously synthetic ecommerce platform. For example, two clinics may both offer “nutrition support,” but one provides unlimited calls with registered dietitians while the other sends “an AI slop PDF.” “To me, those are two completely different standards of care,” she says.
The ‘Temu Experience’ and Vibe-Coded Sites
When things go wrong, consumers may struggle to find recourse. Because turnkey clinics often do not directly employ prescribing clinicians, liability falls on the individual doctor. Ateev Mehrotra, chair of health services, policy, and practice at Brown University, says, “It’s on the clinician, but I wouldn’t be surprised in the coming years, because they’re pushing the boundaries, that lawsuits might actually go after the companies—but we haven’t seen it so far.” Meanwhile, the FDA has recently taken a more aggressive approach to the compounded weight loss space.
What Consumers Should Know
Using a turnkey service does not automatically mean poor quality; many trustworthy platforms use them. LegitScript’s Roth says turnkeys provide scaffolding to help clients “do it the right way.” JustAnswer, which is separately facing an ongoing FTC lawsuit over its subscription enrollment practices, plans to further expand its pharmacy business (Kurtzig declined to provide sales figures). OpenLoop recently launched Launchpad, a service targeting businesses and individual creators without healthcare experience. It allows customers to open virtual clinics for ED, hair loss, hormone therapies, “metabolic cellular optimization,” and weight loss drugs. Within days of launching, the company heard from nearly 50 prospective customers.