What happens to your money if a clinician decides against treatment
A clinician can decide a treatment is not appropriate. What that costs you is a policy question, and it is worth asking before you pay.
Note
Am I charged if a clinician decides a weight-management treatment is not appropriate?
At TRD Labs, no. Payment is authorised at checkout, which places a hold rather than taking money, and it is captured only after a clinician approves a treatment. If no prescription is written the authorisation is released and nothing is taken, and no evaluation fee is kept.
A clinician deciding against treatment is a normal outcome of a medical review rather than an edge case.
A card authorisation expires after roughly a week and extended authorisations do not cover healthcare, so a review that would outlast the hold means asking permission to authorise again rather than re-running the card.
This is a normal outcome, not an edge case
A medical review can conclude that a treatment is not appropriate. Any provider telling you otherwise is describing a shop, not a clinic. So the question is not whether it happens but what it costs you when it does.
The practice regulators have acted on is charging first and reviewing afterwards, sometimes while the checkout page showed a zero balance. That is why the order of operations matters more than the refund policy that follows it.
How ours works
Payment is authorised at checkout and captured only after a clinician approves a treatment. An authorisation is a hold, not a charge. If no prescription is written, the authorisation is released and nothing is taken.
If something was captured and a treatment is then not provided, the refund is issued and you get a reference number for it. We do not keep an evaluation fee out of it.
How long a hold can sit there
An authorisation does not last indefinitely. A card authorisation typically expires after about a week, and the extended holds some processors offer do not apply to healthcare transactions. That is a constraint on us, not on you: it is why the clinical review is targeted at around 24 hours and why we do not let one sit for a week.
If a review is going to take longer than the authorisation can hold, we have to ask your permission to authorise again rather than quietly re-running your card. You will be told before that happens.
What to ask any provider
Am I charged before or after a clinician decides? If before, what is refunded, over what period, and is any part of it kept? Ask for the answer in writing; it is a one-line answer if the policy is simple.
Questions, answered.
Am I charged if a clinician decides against treatment?
No. Payment is authorised at checkout and captured only after approval. If no prescription is written the authorisation is released and nothing is taken.
Do you keep an evaluation or consultation fee?
No. If a treatment is not provided, nothing is kept.
How long does a released authorisation take to disappear?
That is set by your bank rather than by us, and is usually a few business days. We release it immediately on the decision.
What if the review takes longer than the hold lasts?
A card authorisation typically expires after about a week. If a review will take longer, we ask your permission to authorise again rather than re-running your card quietly.
Where this comes from
- Our cancellation and refund terms, including the window and what is refunded. TRD Labs (checked 2026-10-07)
- That charging before a prescription is written, and hiding cancellation, are the practices regulators have acted on. US Federal Trade Commission (checked 2026-10-07)
- That a card authorisation expires after roughly a week, and that extended authorisations do not apply to healthcare transactions. Stripe (checked 2026-10-07)
Our cancellation and refund terms, including the window and what is refunded. — TRD Labs, https://trdlabs.example/refund-and-cancellation (checked 2026-10-07) That charging before a prescription is written, and hiding cancellation, are the practices regulators have acted on. — US Federal Trade Commission, https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/cases-proceedings (checked 2026-10-07) That a card authorisation expires after roughly a week, and that extended authorisations do not apply to healthcare transactions. — Stripe, https://docs.stripe.com/payments/place-a-hold-on-a-payment-method (checked 2026-10-07)
See your total first.
Then your plan and its total, shown before any payment details.