Part 01
Who runs what
A hair loss program is a brand wrapped around a licensed practice. You run the brand. MyOrbitHealth runs the practice infrastructure so an online finasteride or oral minoxidil prescription is issued the way a dermatology clinic would issue it, with the paperwork to prove it. The split below is the one we put in every contract.
| Brand, marketing and pricing | You: own the brand, the storefront design, ad spend, subscription pricing and the patient relationship. / MyOrbitHealth: supplies the branded storefront with checkout and subscriptions and the native iOS and Android app, with no MyOrbitHealth logo in front of the patient. |
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| Intake and eligibility | You: choose which programs to offer (men's hair loss, women's hair loss, or both) and which states to launch first. / MyOrbitHealth: runs Orbit Intake with hair-specific questionnaires, photo capture of the scalp, identity verification, state routing and the screening questions a provider needs to rule out a patient before anything is prescribed. |
| Diagnosis and prescribing | You: never touch a clinical decision. / MyOrbitHealth: a provider licensed in the patient's state reviews the history and photos, decides whether androgenetic alopecia is the likely diagnosis and whether treatment is appropriate, and prescribes through OrbitRx or declines with a documented reason. |
| Pharmacy and fulfillment | You: set the product menu (oral finasteride, oral minoxidil, topical minoxidil, combination topicals, supplements and hair care) with your medical director. / MyOrbitHealth: routes each prescription via Surescripts to a LegitScript-certified 503A compounding or retail pharmacy and passes medication through at 0% markup. |
| Refills and follow-up | You: see subscription, refill and churn status in OrbitOS and run retention. / MyOrbitHealth: providers approve refills on the cadence your protocol sets, run check-ins for side effects, respond to patient messages inside the portal and adjust or stop treatment when clinically warranted. |
| Labs when they matter | You: decide whether a self-order lab catalog appears on the storefront. / MyOrbitHealth: Orbit Labs issues provider-ordered requisitions for the minority of hair loss patients who need them, such as women with suspected iron or thyroid causes, and routes results back to the ordering provider. |
| Compliance and credentialing | You: sign the contract and keep your marketing claims honest. / MyOrbitHealth: NCQA-standard primary-source credentialing with monthly OIG and SAM screening, SOC 2 Type II, HITRUST-aligned controls, HIPAA plus a BAA in every contract, and managed LegitScript certification for your brand. |
Part 02
What a hair loss program requires, clinically and legally
None of the common hair loss medications is a controlled substance, which is why this category launches faster than TRT or weight management. It still has rules, and a few of them changed recently. The points below reflect the landscape as we understand it as of September 2026. They are general information, not legal or medical advice, and your own counsel and medical director should confirm them for your states and products.
Finasteride is approved; oral minoxidil is off-label
Oral finasteride is FDA-approved for male pattern hair loss.
- Oral minoxidil is FDA-approved as a blood pressure medication and is prescribed off-label at low doses for hair loss, a use supported by a growing dermatology literature but not by an FDA label.
- Off-label prescribing is legal and common, but the decision belongs to the provider, not the brand.
- Marketing that presents oral minoxidil as an approved hair loss drug, or promises results, draws regulator and ad platform attention, so we review storefront copy before launch.
The FDA alert on compounded topical finasteride
In April 2025 the FDA alerted providers, compounders and consumers to adverse event reports tied to compounded topical finasteride, including products combined with minoxidil.
- There is no FDA-approved topical finasteride, and the reported events, among them sexual dysfunction, depression and anxiety, mirrored those on the oral label, with some persisting after discontinuation.
- The alert did not ban the products, but a program that offers compounded topicals should have a documented rationale, explicit informed consent and a provider willing to defend the choice.
- Your medical director sets that policy; MyOrbitHealth enforces it in the prescribing flow.
Async intake is a fit, with limits
Most states allow a prescription for a non-controlled medication to be issued after an asynchronous, store-and-forward evaluation, provided a licensed provider reviews a complete history and can establish a diagnosis.
Hair loss is well suited to this because scalp photos plus a structured questionnaire carry most of the diagnostic signal. A handful of states still expect a synchronous video or phone visit before a first prescription, and OrbitOS routes those patients to a live visit automatically rather than leaving the rule to chance.
Who should not be prescribed
Finasteride is not for women who are or may become pregnant, and providers screen for that at intake.
Oral minoxidil carries cardiovascular considerations, so providers ask about blood pressure, heart disease, fluid retention and interacting medications before prescribing it. Women's hair loss has a wider differential than men's, including thyroid disease, iron deficiency, hormonal causes and scarring alopecias that a pill will not fix, which is where Orbit Labs and a referral pathway matter.
State licensure and practice structure
The prescribing provider must hold a license in the state where the patient is located at the time of the visit.
- Most states also restrict who can own a medical practice and how a lay company can share in professional fees.
- MyOrbitHealth runs the managed-services structure so the licensed practice makes clinical decisions and your brand handles marketing, technology and patient acquisition.
- Your brand is the merchant of record and owns the patient relationship and data, and there is no revenue share tied to prescribing volume.
Pharmacy and advertising certification
Google, Meta and most payment processors expect a telehealth brand that advertises prescription products to hold LegitScript certification.
Every pharmacy in the OrbitRx network is LegitScript-certified, and managed LegitScript certification for your brand is included: we prepare, file and manage the application through approval, typically days once filed. LegitScript makes the decision, so approval is not guaranteed, but a well-prepared application on a compliant stack is the fastest path we know.
Part 03
What MyOrbitHealth runs for your hair loss program
Everything below is live product, not a roadmap. A hair brand that signs today typically launches in days, because the provider network, pharmacy contracts and async intake already exist and are configured to your brand rather than built for it. Hair loss is one of the programs behind the 50+ digital clinics on the platform.
Orbit Intake for hair loss patients
Branded questionnaires for male and female pattern hair loss, with guided scalp photo capture from the front, crown and hairline, identity verification and state detection.
Intake captures the medical history a provider needs to rule out contraindications, flags pregnancy status and cardiovascular history, and routes the patient to an async review or a live visit based on the state rule.
Provider Network licensed in all 50 states
2,400+ board-certified MDs, DOs, NPs and PAs across 38+ specialties, including dermatology and family medicine, credentialed to NCQA standards with monthly OIG and SAM screening.
Providers are available 24 hours, with an average response under six minutes during business hours. Your medical director sets the hair loss protocol; the network executes it consistently across every state you sell in.
OrbitRx to 503A compounding and retail pharmacies
Prescriptions leave OrbitRx through Surescripts to a LegitScript-certified pharmacy.
- Oral finasteride, oral minoxidil and topical minoxidil route to retail or mail-order pharmacies; compounded topicals and combination products route to 503A compounding pharmacies where your protocol allows them.
- EPCS with two-factor identity proofing is built in for the day you add a program that needs it.
- Medication passes through at 0% markup.
Subscription refills that do not require a new visit each month
Hair loss is a maintenance category, and the economics live in the refill.
The branded storefront handles subscriptions and checkout; OrbitRx handles refill approval on the cadence your protocol sets, with a provider check-in on side effects at the intervals your medical director chooses. Patients update photos from the app so the provider can see progress over time.
Orbit Labs for the cases that need it
Most men's hair loss patients never need a lab.
- Some women's patients do, and a program that ignores that is not a clinic.
- When a provider orders a panel, the patient can draw it as a Quest or Labcorp walk-in with an order slip, a Tasso at-home kit shipped by FedEx, or a mobile phlebotomy visit.
- Results route to the ordering provider, who reads them into the plan.
- Your storefront can also carry a patient self-order lab catalog for people who want to check thyroid or iron before they commit to treatment.
OrbitOS, storefront, app and developer surface
OrbitOS is one console for encounters, prescriptions, refill queues, subscription status and patient messages; the brand sees everything operational and can edit nothing clinical.
The branded storefront with checkout and subscriptions and the native iOS and Android app are yours to design. Teams that want their own front end use the REST API with webhooks and the React SDK, and a public MCP server lets internal tools query program state.
Part 04
Economics and where the program can go next
Hair loss is a high-volume, low-touch subscription business with strong retention when the refill experience is good. The commercial terms below are the same for every brand, and the expansion paths are the ones our operators most often take once hair loss is stable.
| Platform fee | A flat platform fee scoped at onboarding based on programs, states and volume. No per-visit fee, no per-prescription fee and no percentage of revenue. |
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| Medication and labs | Medication passes through at 0% markup. Lab pricing is quoted per program at onboarding; there is no published lab rate card. |
| Ownership and terms | The brand is merchant of record, owns the patients and the data, and can export both. No exit fee, month-to-month after onboarding. |
| Time to launch | Days for a hair loss program on the existing provider network and pharmacy contracts, plus the LegitScript timeline, which is typically days once filed. |
| Add women's hair loss | A men's program can add a women's track on the same intake with a broader differential, oral minoxidil and spironolactone pathways where the provider judges them appropriate, and Orbit Labs for thyroid and iron workups. |
| Add adjacent men's health programs | Erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, skin care and weight management share the same intake, storefront and provider pool; most hair brands add at least one within the first quarter. |
