Private digital health clinics are a rapidly growing multi-billion-dollar global industry. Unlike traditional telehealth, which functions as one modality within a broader range of care, these clinics are standalone, consumer-facing platforms. They offer diagnosis, prescribing, and medication delivery as an all-in-one service.
The clinics focus on high-demand, low-complexity issues such as weight loss, acne, sexual health and hair loss. Popular medications include the GLP-1 receptor agonists, such as semaglutide (Ozempic/Wegovy) for weight loss. They rely on protocol-driven models with an emphasis on efficiency, scalability, and direct-to-consumer marketing. Diagnosis is typically based on patient-reported symptoms, with little or no opportunity for physical examination. They advertise extensively on social media, usually with care framed around specific outcomes (“clear skin,” “weight loss”) or particular services, such as issuing medical certificates or prescription repeats.
These clinics reposition the patient as a customer and the clinical encounter as a transaction. Ethical concerns include the erosion of the clinician–patient relationship, harms from inappropriate prescribing, and the commercial exploitation of aesthetic and health anxieties. These services may offer benefits for a portion of the population, particularly where conditions are a low priority for resource allocation in the public healthcare system. However, access is shaped more by digital literacy and financial capacity than medical need.
Here I present a typology of these digital clinics, identifying key features such as subscription models, single-treatment framing, and gender-targeted branding. I also examine the implications for clinical ethics, regulation, and healthcare delivery in an increasingly commodified digital healthcare environment.