Trust and review policies

Clinician Index separates public identity records from professional peer feedback. A public NPI or licensing record is not a Clinician Index score.

Credential verification

Automated checks prepare information from permitted official sources. Every final credential approval is made manually by an administrator, who must confirm the official credential source, identity, active status, scope, and discipline information before approving access. Restricted registries may require an official-source lookup.

Review standards

Reviews must reflect the reviewer’s firsthand professional experience, avoid patient information, and describe observable workplace behavior. Reviewers must attest that the assessment is not paid or exchanged and that it does not include personal health or identifying details. Specific negative feedback, including recurring problems and safety concerns, is welcome. Reviews are evaluated using the same standards regardless of whether they are favorable; personal attacks and unsupported claims are excluded.

How the assessment and score work

The current care-team assessment (version 7) uses four factual setup answers and the account’s verified work functions to assign relevant questions. Colleagues do not configure an assessment depth or question list. The question bank spans nursing, procedural work, clinical peers, pharmacy, respiratory care, imaging, rehabilitation, medical assistants, care coordination and office staff. A broad daily IR assessment can include up to 55 questions; other paths differ, and unobserved situations can be omitted. A verified role, frequency of contact, or specialty does not establish that someone witnessed or can judge a task. Expert prompts require appropriate server-approved task permissions within the verified work function, together with firsthand observation and the ability to judge the work. Workplace-role verification is available for staff without a relevant professional license. Personal confidence remains last.

Performance choices are Poor, Below standard, Competent, Strong, and Exceptional, each with a question-specific behavioral description. Their index points are 0, 40, 75, 90, and 100 respectively. Competent means the expected standard was met. Unable to assess is a separate, unscored answer. These points are explicit product scoring rules; they are not clinical outcome probabilities or validated performance thresholds.

Clinical execution has a weight of 40%, clinical knowledge and judgment 25%, teamwork 15%, patient interactions 10%, and follow-through 10%. Within each component, observed answers are averaged per colleague. If the same colleague reviews multiple settings, their values are averaged first so they contribute once per component. Components are then averaged across distinct colleagues and combined using these weights. Unassessed components are excluded and the remaining weights are normalized. The overall score is rounded once at the end; displayed component numbers are also rounded. At least one colleague must assess observed clinical work before an overall index appears. In versions 6 and 7, routine verification or accountability alone cannot establish this clinical coverage. In version 7, uncertainty communication and required supervision review likewise cannot establish it alone. Teamwork or patient manner alone cannot produce an overall clinical score. The main number is an index, not a recommendation percentage.

Only moderated assessments from colleagues whose credential approval remains active are eligible. Submissions must be within the past 12 months, with work observed within the year before submission. A score can appear from the first eligible colleague who assesses clinical execution or clinical knowledge and judgment. If neither clinical component is assessable, no overall score is published. Counts show distinct contributing colleagues; early scores can change substantially with further feedback.

Personal confidence is shown separately, using No, Low, Moderate, High, or Very high confidence in choosing the clinician for oneself or someone close, for the care observed. Unable-to-assess answers are excluded. Repeated confidence responses from one colleague are averaged before the overall confidence band and response distribution are calculated. Confidence does not enter the index. Yes/No recommendation counts from version 4 remain labeled as earlier recommendations.

Incident choices are None observed, One incident, Multiple incidents, and Unable to assess. They produce separate concern reports and never enter the performance calculation or become automatic penalties or score caps. Public counts identify distinct reporting colleagues per question, not unique incidents or complication rates. Several responses can describe the same event. Private incident context and observed outcomes are retained for moderators. Appropriate help-seeking, supervision, a changed plan, or a complication does not by itself establish an error. Working frequency, duration, encounter counts, team relationship, and care complexity remain private context. They do not add votes, change component weights, or provide risk adjustment. A separate private safety observation is available at every assessment depth.

This assessment has not been validated as a measure of clinical competence, technical skill, clinical outcomes, or an official hospital quality metric. It supports reflection and improvement and should not be the sole basis for employment, privileges, compensation, or care decisions. Patient-related answers describe staff observations, not patient-submitted experience ratings. Work roles and applicable professional credentials are checked; the working relationship and reported experiences are attested by the reviewer.

Earlier questionnaires, private narratives, and moderation decisions are retained. A profile displays the newest questionnaire with a publishable score and clearly labels earlier scores. Questionnaire versions are never combined or silently reinterpreted. Version 5 retains its original 20-question bank and behavioral descriptions. Version 6 retains its original adaptive bank, contexts and scoring. Version 7 consolidates overlapping judgments, adds role-specific contexts and gated discharge-readiness and supervision questions, and records the exact questions, anchors and verification reference used. Saved setup can carry forward, but earlier draft ratings are cleared and written material requires review before reuse. Version 4 retains its nine Yes/No competency questions, Yes = 100 and No = 0, equal assessed-component weights, separate recommendations, and separate concern reports. Versions 2 and 3 retain Never-to-Always responses and the requirement for two assessed items per core area; all three core areas must be calculable. Version 3 includes the procedural area equally when assessable, with repeated missed safety steps reverse-scored and concern notices retained. The original questionnaire retains technical skill and judgment at 30% each and communication and teamwork at 20% each, normalized for observed answers. Payment does not change eligibility, scoring, or moderation.

What clinical colleagues observed

Written examples and observations can be kept private. Public use requires both the colleague's consent and separate moderator approval before publication. They may appear verbatim with a professional-role label, without account identity, organization, or exact submission date. Moderators check for identifying details, firsthand relevance, unsupported claims, and personal attacks; moderation does not independently verify a clinical incident. Observations may include candid strengths and concerns. Private moderation context and all previously private narrative fields remain private and are never used as public quotes.

Hospital and practice comparisons

Comparisons summarize clinician feedback at the organization selected in a review. We use the same recency, credential approval, moderation, and per-clinician publication standards described above. Each location comparison uses the newest supported questionnaire with a publishable clinician score. Earlier and current questionnaires are never combined in one location comparison, and the displayed questionnaire is labeled. Reviews at other organizations do not enter a clinician's location-specific score.

A location can appear after one eligible colleague assessment. Its comparison score appears when at least one clinician has a publishable location-specific score, and is the equally weighted average of included clinicians' scores. An early location summary may reflect one clinician and one reviewer; sample counts are shown with each score. Individual review text is not published. These summaries are preliminary and are not validated reliability measures.

Locations are grouped by the selected organization NPI and city, not inferred from a clinician's public practice affiliation. Separate registry records are kept separate even when they may belong to one hospital. Reviewer-attested affiliation is not an audited hospital roster. Summaries represent participating samples, not every clinician at an organization. Specialty mix and self-selection affect comparability; the results are not adjusted for those differences and do not measure hospital quality, complications, or outcomes. Payment does not influence scores or moderation, and hospitals do not receive reviewer identities through this comparison.

Public profiles, claims, and corrections

Some public profiles begin with information from official practice directories and the CMS NPI Registry. When the sources match, the NPI is the one identity used to keep the directory profile, reviews, and score together. If a source-directory profile cannot yet be matched to a public NPI record, it stays searchable but cannot receive reviews or a score. These pages are marked unclaimed and do not by themselves establish current employment, hospital privileges, board certification, or endorsement. A physician may use the profile’s claim link to submit credentials for manual review, or use the correction link to report a factual error. Do not include names, dates, medical record numbers, diagnoses, or other patient details. Providers may also report outdated credential information, privacy concerns, or content that violates these rules for administrator review.

Information and privacy

Account and credential applications may contain your name, account email, professional role, jurisdiction, credential and license numbers, NPI, workplace-role evidence, approved work functions, task permissions and verification notes. These credential records remain private. Review submissions contain the selected clinician and organization, protected account identifier, verified-role label, individual answers, work and encounter context, and optional writing. Only moderated aggregates and separately approved, consented public observations are exposed on clinician profiles. With small samples, a colleague may still be recognizable from their role or wording; anonymity cannot be guaranteed. Never include patient or identifying details. Public directory records are labeled by their official source.

We retain verification and moderation records for operational, fraud-prevention, and audit purposes while the program is active. To request a correction, privacy review, or deletion of information you submitted, include the profile or application identifier when contacting the Clinician Index administrator through the account or application communications associated with the record. Do not send patient information.

Important limitation

Clinician Index information is not medical advice and does not guarantee clinical outcomes. It is an informational peer-signal system, not a substitute for professional licensure or hospital credentialing.

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