Favor (Formerly The Pill Club) Prescribing Data, Outcomes, and What Women Should Know

What Is Favor and How Did It Become The Pill Club?

Favor is a telehealth platform built around contraceptive access for women. It started as The Pill Club in 2015, positioning itself as a subscription-style service that mailed birth control to your door after an online visit with a clinician. In 2023 the company rebranded to Favor, broadening its stated mission to cover more of women's healthcare. The core model stays the same: complete a short intake questionnaire, get a prescription from a network clinician, and receive your contraceptives by mail. The service bills insurance where coverage applies and offers cash-pay pricing otherwise.

The rebranding has created real confusion in search and reviews. When you look for complaints about Favor, you often find them filed under The Pill Club, and vice versa. That matters for your research, because the regulatory and consumer complaint record lives under the older name.

What the Service Actually Offers

Favor's current formulary centers on combined oral contraceptives, progestin-only pills, the patch, and the ring. It does not ship IUDs or implants, which require in-office placement. For women who want long-acting reversible contraception (LARC), Favor is not the right platform. ACOG consistently recommends LARCs as first-line options for women seeking highly effective contraception, so understanding what a service does not offer is as important as what it does.

The intake process is asynchronous in most states: you fill out a form, a clinician reviews it, and a prescription is issued without a real-time video call. This is legal in most U.S. Jurisdictions for hormonal contraception under standing orders or collaborative practice agreements, but it means your prescribing clinician may spend only minutes reviewing your information.

Insurance and Cost Structure

Favor accepts most major commercial insurance plans and Medicaid in some states. Under the Affordable Care Act, most insurers are required to cover FDA-approved contraceptive methods without cost-sharing, meaning you may pay nothing out of pocket for your pills. The ACA contraceptive mandate covers all FDA-approved methods, though plan specifics vary. Cash-pay prices for generic oral contraceptives through Favor run roughly $15 to $25 per pack, competitive with GoodRx pricing at retail pharmacies.

The 2021 FDA Warning Letter: What It Said

This is the most significant regulatory signal in Favor's public record, and it deserves a plain reading.

In February 2021, the FDA issued a warning letter to The Pill Club citing violations of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The core finding: the company had dispensed prescription drugs, including hormonal contraceptives, to patients without a valid prescription on file in some cases. The FDA also cited inadequate pharmacist oversight and issues with the labeling of dispensed medications.

The warning letter is public record. You can read it on the FDA's database. The Pill Club responded to the FDA, made operational changes, and was not shut down. No consent decree or criminal referral followed. The company continued operating and eventually rebranded.

What This Means for a Woman Using the Service

A missing or invalid prescription is not a minor paperwork gap. Hormonal contraceptives carry real risks, including venous thromboembolism, stroke in women with migraine with aura, and hypertension-related cardiovascular events. A clinician reviewing your full medical history is what separates appropriate prescribing from dispensing. The FDA's prescribing information for combined oral contraceptives lists absolute contraindications that an asynchronous intake form must actively screen for.

The FDA warning letter does not mean Favor is unsafe today. Companies can fix systems. What it means is that you should confirm your intake was actually reviewed by a licensed clinician, that your contraindications were assessed, and that a valid prescription was generated before your medication shipped.

Has Favor Published Any Corrective Data?

No. As of mid-2025, Favor has not published peer-reviewed data, an outcomes report, or a transparency document showing prescribing error rates, contraindication screening accuracy, or patient safety events. This is an evidence gap that matters. Established telehealth platforms with strong safety cultures, such as those operating under NCQA or URAC accreditation, publish quality metrics. Favor does not appear to hold either accreditation.

The WomanRx editorial board recommends applying the following four-question framework before using any contraceptive telehealth service:

1. Was my intake reviewed by a named, licensed clinician in my state?
2. Did the intake explicitly ask about migraine with aura, personal or family history of clot, smoking status, and blood pressure?
3. Is the dispensing pharmacy licensed in my state and verifiable through the NABP database?
4. Does the service have a mechanism to reach a clinician within 24 hours if I have a side-effect concern?

If you cannot answer yes to all four, escalate your concern before taking the medication.

Consumer Complaint Patterns: BBB, Reddit, and State Boards

The Better Business Bureau shows a complaint history for The Pill Club going back several years. As of mid-2025, the business is not BBB-accredited. Complaints cluster around three themes: billing and insurance errors (the most common), shipping delays causing gaps in contraceptive coverage, and difficulty reaching customer service.

Billing errors with telehealth contraception services are not cosmetic annoyances. A woman who runs out of pills because a shipment was delayed due to an unresolved billing dispute has a real gap in contraceptive coverage. Consistent daily dosing is required for oral contraceptive efficacy, and even a two-to-three day gap can reduce protection, particularly with progestin-only pills where the window is narrower.

State Regulatory Actions

No state medical board action specifically naming The Pill Club or Favor appears in publicly searchable databases as of this writing. That is not the same as a clean record; state board actions are not uniformly indexed. If you are in a state with a pharmacy board that actively oversees telepharmacy, you can run a search through your state's pharmacy board directly.

LegitScript Status

LegitScript, which verifies online pharmacies and telehealth services, does not list Favor (or The Pill Club) as a verified or certified entity as of mid-2025. LegitScript certification is voluntary, so absence is not a red flag by itself. It does mean a layer of independent vetting is missing that some competing services have chosen to pursue.

Pregnancy, Lactation, and Contraception: The Non-Negotiables

Every drug article on WomanRx includes this section. For a birth control service, it is the entire point.

Combined Hormonal Contraceptives and Pregnancy

Combined estrogen-progestin contraceptives are FDA Pregnancy Category X, meaning the risks to a fetus outweigh any benefit, and they are contraindicated during pregnancy. This is not a theoretical concern. Intake forms for any contraceptive telehealth service must screen for current pregnancy. The asynchronous model makes this screening dependent entirely on self-report. If a woman does not know she is pregnant, or does not report it, no real-time clinical judgment catches it.

The good news: inadvertent first-trimester exposure to combined oral contraceptives has not been shown to cause structural fetal abnormalities in large observational studies, though ACOG advises against use once pregnancy is confirmed. If you think you may be pregnant, do not start or continue combined hormonal contraception until you have a negative pregnancy test.

Lactation

Estrogen-containing contraceptives can suppress milk supply, particularly in the first six weeks postpartum when milk production is being established. The CDC U.S. Medical Eligibility Criteria for Contraceptive Use categorizes combined hormonal contraceptives as Category 3 (risks generally outweigh benefits) in women who are breastfeeding and less than one month postpartum, and Category 2 (benefits generally outweigh risks) from one to six months postpartum.

Progestin-only pills, the mini-pill, are the preferred oral option for breastfeeding women. They do not meaningfully reduce milk supply and are CDC Category 1 during lactation. If you are postpartum and breastfeeding, your telehealth intake should route you to a progestin-only option, not a combined pill, unless there is a specific clinical reason otherwise. A service that defaults all users to combined pills without screening for lactation status is not following evidence-based care.

Absolute Contraindications That an Intake Form Must Catch

The CDC U.S. Medical Eligibility Criteria lists Category 4 conditions (absolute contraindications) for combined hormonal contraceptives. These include:

• Current or past deep vein thrombosis or pulmonary embolism
• Known thrombogenic mutations (Factor V Leiden, prothrombin mutation)
• Migraine with aura at any age
• Smoking in women 35 and older
• Uncontrolled hypertension (systolic >160 or diastolic >100 mmHg)
• Current breast cancer
• Complicated valvular heart disease

An asynchronous intake form that asks about these conditions in plain language, and routes women with any Category 4 condition to a different method or a live clinician visit, is doing the job correctly. You have every right to ask Favor whether their intake algorithm incorporates CDC MEC categories.

Who This Service May Be Right For (and Who It Is Not)

Reproductive-Age Women With Simple Contraceptive Needs

If you are a healthy woman in your 20s or early 30s, no contraindications, already established on a specific pill that works for you, and the main problem is convenience and cost, Favor's model fits. You are getting a refill of a known medication. The clinical risk of the asynchronous model is lowest in this group.

Women Starting Hormonal Contraception for the First Time

First-time users benefit from a real conversation with a clinician about side-effect expectations, the difference between pill types, and what symptoms require urgent evaluation (chest pain, severe headache, leg swelling). An asynchronous form cannot replicate that conversation. This does not make Favor wrong for first-time users, but it means you should supplement the intake with your own research or a follow-up call.

Women With PCOS, Endometriosis, or Hormonal Acne

Combined oral contraceptives are used therapeutically for PCOS, endometriosis-associated pain, and hormonal acne. The prescribing decision in these cases is more nuanced than straight contraception. Pill selection matters: a pill with a more antiandrogenic progestin (drospirenone, cyproterone where available, dienogest for endometriosis) may outperform a pill with androgenic activity. A form-based intake is unlikely to optimize for this. If you have PCOS or endometriosis, a visit with a gynecologist or reproductive endocrinologist to select the right formulation first, then use Favor for refills, is a reasonable approach.

Perimenopausal Women

Favor is not designed for perimenopausal hormone therapy. Low-dose combined oral contraceptives are sometimes used in perimenopause for cycle regulation and contraception (women remain fertile until 12 consecutive months of amenorrhea), but this requires a more thorough cardiovascular risk assessment than a standard reproductive-age intake. ACOG Practice Bulletin 141 addresses contraception in perimenopause specifically. If you are 40 or older, have irregular cycles, and are considering Favor, confirm that their intake actually screens for perimenopausal risk factors.

Women With Migraine With Aura

Do not use Favor or any other service to obtain combined hormonal contraceptives if you have migraine with aura. This is an absolute contraindication. The risk of ischemic stroke in women with migraine with aura is elevated at baseline, and combined estrogen-containing contraceptives multiply that risk. The progestin-only pill, IUD, or implant are appropriate alternatives. If an intake form asks about migraines but does not distinguish between migraine with and without aura, it is not capturing the contraindication correctly.

Prescribing Patterns and What We Actually Know

Published prescribing data specific to Favor does not exist in peer-reviewed literature. What we can describe comes from analogous telehealth contraception research.

A 2021 study in Obstetrics and Gynecology found that telehealth contraception visits during the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with high patient satisfaction and low rates of discontinuation at three months, though the study acknowledged limited follow-up duration and no comparison of safety events against in-person prescribing.

A 2023 analysis published in Contraception examined whether online contraceptive services screened adequately for absolute contraindications. The researchers found that approximately 14% of women using direct-to-consumer contraception apps reported at least one condition that would qualify as a Category 3 or 4 contraindication under CDC MEC, yet received prescriptions anyway. This was across multiple platforms, not Favor specifically. The finding is worth knowing.

There is a direct evidence gap here for women: no randomized or prospective cohort study has compared safety outcomes between Favor users and women receiving contraception through traditional in-person care. That gap is not Favor's fault alone; telehealth contraception as a category is under-studied. But it means any claim that telehealth contraception is "just as safe" as in-person care is extrapolated, not proven in head-to-head data.

The Guttmacher Institute estimates that 1 in 4 American women will have an unintended pregnancy by age 45. Removing access barriers to contraception has real public health value. The question is whether the quality of prescribing keeps pace with the convenience of the model.

How Favor Compares on Transparency

A brief comparison against the transparency standards you should expect:

| Standard | Favor/The Pill Club | Better Telehealth Practice | |---|---|---| | Named prescribing clinician on your receipt | Reported inconsistently by users | Should be standard | | NABP-verified dispensing pharmacy | Not publicly confirmed | Verifiable on NABP site | | BBB accreditation | No | Some competitors hold this | | LegitScript certification | No | Some competitors hold this | | Published quality metrics | None public | NCQA-accredited services publish HEDIS data | | FDA warning letter on record | Yes (2021) | Most comparable services have none |

This table is based on publicly searchable information. If Favor has updated its accreditation or published quality data since this article's review date, check directly.

Practical Steps Before You Use Favor

1. Run the NABP online pharmacy verification tool to confirm the dispensing pharmacy is licensed in your state.
2. Read your intake confirmation email and confirm it names a licensed clinician who reviewed your form.
3. If you have migraine with aura, a history of clot, or are breastfeeding, call Favor's clinical line before accepting any prescription.
4. Cross-check your contraindications using the CDC MEC wheel or app, which is free and updated regularly.
5. If you experience chest pain, sudden severe headache, vision changes, or unilateral leg swelling after starting hormonal contraception, go to an emergency department. Do not wait for a telehealth response.