Standards

Sourcing

A specific claim carries its source in the sentence that makes it. If we cannot name where a number came from, we do not print the number. There is no estimating, no rounding for readability, and no carrying a figure forward from last year on the assumption that it has not moved.

The sources are printed at the foot of every article as links, not tucked into a comment or a footnote, because a reader deciding what to pay should be able to open the same government page we read.

Government sources first

Medicare.gov, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Social Security Administration are where the figures on this site come from. Where a number exists on an official page, that page is the source we cite, and we do not cite a second hand summary of it in its place.

Every figure carries its plan year

Medicare resets most of its dollar amounts each plan year. A premium, a deductible, an income threshold and a late penalty are each a different number in a different year, so no figure is printed without the year it belongs to, and each article states the plan year its figures apply to.

Review

The standard is a named review by a clinician or benefits specialist who is not the writer. That standard is not yet met on any article on this site. Every article says so on its own page, in the author box, rather than leaving the gap where a reader would assume it had been filled. No article here claims a review that did not happen.

Dates

We print a date only when it is real. Where an article has been checked against its government source on a particular day, that day is printed and labelled for exactly what it is: the day the figures were checked, never a publication date it is not. Where no date has been set, the page says nothing rather than showing a placeholder.

Information, not advice

Everything here explains how Medicare works. None of it is advice about your own coverage, and none of it is a recommendation to buy, keep or drop a plan. Every article carries that distinction on its own page. This site does not sell insurance and does not enroll anybody in anything.

Advertising

Nothing is sold on this site yet, so no advertiser has ever had anything to say about anything published here. The rules below are set now, before there is any money to argue with them.

Advertising gets no say in what we cover and no advance sight of it. Nothing sold here will be set in our typeface, laid out like a story, or placed where a reader could mistake it for our own writing. If that ever stops being true, it will be because we said so on this page first.

Corrections

When we get something wrong we say so on the corrections page, with what the article originally said and the date it was fixed. A correction is never made silently. If you have found an error, name the article and the sentence through the contact page.