Editorial standards
How we source data, cite evidence, and stay honest on a health topic. Last updated 1 July 2026.
SpinalCare covers health, which means the standard for what we publish is higher than for an ordinary directory. Our guiding rule is simple: we organise and attribute true information — we do not invent it, and we do not give medical advice. Everything below is how that rule is applied in practice.
How provider listings are sourced
- Authoritative seed. Listings begin from the US National Provider Identifier (NPI) registry (NPPES) — the public federal record of licensed providers — filtered on each provider’s primary taxonomy so specialties are not mislabelled.
- Real practice address. We use the provider’s practice location, never a mailing or PO-box address, and map it with the free US Census geocoder. If an address will not geocode, we show no pin rather than an approximate one.
- No thin pages. A city-and-specialty page is published only with at least three real providers; otherwise it rolls up to the state. We do not generate empty pages to chase search traffic.
- Marked provenance. Every listing is labelled as registry-seeded and unclaimed until the provider confirms it. Unknown fields read “Not provided” — never a guess.
Because listings come from public professional records, a listing is not an endorsement, a recommendation, or a statement about quality of care. It records that a licensed provider of that specialty is registered at that location.
How reference content is written
Condition and procedure pages are written in an aggregation register: we explain what recognised medical authorities — for example the NHS and the AAOS OrthoInfo library — publish, in plain English. Every substantive claim is attributed to a named source, each source is a real URL we have fetched and checked, and each page carries a last-reviewed date.
We deliberately do not write first-person medical advice, diagnose, or tell an individual what to do about their symptoms. Until a named, credentialed clinician is attached as a reviewer, the reviewer field on every page is present but empty, and the last-reviewed date reflects our editorial check — not clinical sign-off. If and when a qualified reviewer joins, that is disclosed on the page.
Red-flag warning signs (the symptoms that mean someone should seek urgent care) are highlighted on every relevant page and drawn directly from those same authoritative sources.
How expert video is used
We embed reputable third-party video from named, credentialed clinicians, always with attribution and a short curation note explaining why it is included. We never transcribe, re-word, or re-publish a creator’s work as our own — the embed points to their channel, and the credit stays with them.
What we never do
- Invent a provider, clinic, credential, address, review, or rating.
- Cite a source we have not read, or link a URL we have not checked.
- Present aggregated information as personal medical advice.
- Let a provider pay to rank higher, or dress advertising up as editorial.
Corrections and removals
If anything on SpinalCare is wrong — a listing detail, a citation, or a statement on a reference page — we want to fix it. Providers can claim or correct a listing, including asking for removal. For anything else, email hello@spinalcare.org and we will review it. Confirmed errors are corrected promptly, and material changes to a reference page update its last-reviewed date.