We never invent a rating. Every figure on a profile comes from one of three clearly labelled tiers, and the tiers are never blended into a single score. Anything that cannot be attributed to a source is not published.
Tier 1 — Official CMS ratings
For hospitals we display the CMS Hospital Compare overall star rating (1–5). It is calculated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — not by us — and reproduced unmodified.
Tier 2 — Experience indicators
For individual providers we show which procedures they bill to Medicare most often, from the CMS Medicare Physician & Other Practitioners dataset. These are facts about volume, shown as a table and never as a score. They reflect Medicare fee-for-service claims only, and indicate how often procedures were billed — not quality of care or patient satisfaction.
Tier 3 — Web review summaries
Where enough public patient reviews exist, we publish an AI-generated summary with per-factor scores and pros/cons. Strict rules apply: a summary requires at least two verifiable sources or it is discarded; every source is listed and linked; confidence is calculated from the number of reviews found, never asserted by the AI; and each summary is reviewed by a human before publication.
These summaries are not ratings by us, are not medical advice, and may not reflect current experiences. Verified providers can view their sources, respond, and request removal.