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RehabAnalytics

Editorial

Editorial Methodology — How RehabAnalytics Reaches Conclusions

This page documents the sourcing and review process behind every fact, ranking, and recommendation on RehabAnalytics. The intent is reproducibility: a reader skeptical of any claim should be able to follow the citations back to the primary source and verify the chain. We treat this as the editorial equivalent of an audit trail.

Source-tier framework

Not all sources carry the same weight. We rank them in four explicit tiers, and any factual claim on this site is anchored to at least one Tier 1 or Tier 2 source. The tier shows up in the citation footnote on every article.

  • Tier 1 — Primary research: Peer-reviewed clinical and health-policy research published in indexed journals (NEJM, JAMA, Addiction, Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, Health Affairs, Drug and Alcohol Dependence). Federal agency primary publications based on original data collection (SAMHSA N-SSATS, NIDA Monitoring the Future, CDC WONDER, NSDUH). State public-health agency primary reports.
  • Tier 2 — Authoritative aggregation: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses (Cochrane Collaboration, AHRQ Evidence-based Practice Centers). Clinical practice guidelines from accredited specialty societies (ASAM Criteria 4th edition, APA practice guidelines, USPSTF recommendations). Federal regulatory documents (CMS coverage policies, DOL/Treasury/HHS parity rule, FDA labeling).
  • Tier 3 — Industry and program-level data: Joint Commission and CARF accreditation public records. State licensing-board public registries. Treatment-program-published outcome statistics where the methodology is disclosed. Verified payer claims data analyses (Kaiser Family Foundation, Health Care Cost Institute).
  • Tier 4 — Reporting and analysis: Health-desk reporting in publications with documented editorial standards (Kaiser Health News, ProPublica, STAT, The New York Times health desk, Marshall Project). We use these for context and to identify primary sources, not as primary citations themselves.

What we explicitly exclude as a source for clinical or coverage claims: marketing copy from treatment facilities, anonymous online testimonials, "best of" listings without disclosed methodology, AI-generated summaries that cannot be reverse-engineered to a primary source.

Fact-checking process

Every claim about a clinical, regulatory, or financial outcome passes through three checkpoints before publication:

  1. Source identification: The claim is mapped to its highest-tier source. If the claim cannot be anchored to Tier 1 or Tier 2, the editor decides whether to drop it, qualify it ("limited evidence suggests…"), or replace it.
  2. Primary verification: The cited source is read in full by the reviewing editor — not summarized, not quoted from a secondary source. The relevant section number, page, or paragraph is captured with the citation.
  3. Currency check: Each citation has a verification date. Sources older than three years are flagged for re-review unless they document a fixed historical fact (e.g., a 2008 statute).

Updates and corrections

When we discover an error, the page is corrected and a correction notice is appended below the article body, with the date of correction and a brief description of what changed. We do not silently amend factual content. If the change materially affects a recommendation made earlier, the date appears in the article header so a returning reader knows to re-read.

Periodic refresh: every editorial article on RehabAnalytics is reviewed at minimum quarterly. Coverage and parity content is reviewed monthly during regulatory transitions (the 2024 parity rule, mid-2025 Medicare changes). The "last verified" date in each article footer is authoritative; if the date is older than the cycle for that content type, treat the page as in-progress review.

Conflict of interest disclosure

The economics of this site are transparent. We participate in helpline-revenue sharing on a referral basis when readers call the helpline number on this site and ultimately enroll in an in-network treatment program. The fee structure is industry-standard. Two commitments anyway: facility ordering in our directory is not influenced by this revenue (it follows SAMHSA verification, license status, and accreditation), and editorial content is written before any revenue consideration is weighed (in fact, the editorial team is structurally separated from helpline operations).

Listed treatment programs cannot pay to be added to the directory, removed from it, or repositioned within it. The directory inclusion criterion is SAMHSA listing — period.

Authorship

Editorial articles are written by the RehabAnalytics editorial team. Where a clinician, attorney, or subject-matter specialist contributes or reviews content, the contributor is credited by name and credentials at the article footer. We do not publish ghost-written or unattributed clinical content.

Get in touch

If you find a factual error, a missing citation, or a source-tier classification you'd like us to reconsider, reach the editorial team through the contact form. Replies go out within one business day on substantive corrections. For urgent treatment decisions, please contact a clinician — call 988 for crisis support or 1-800-662-HELP for the SAMHSA federal helpline.