Medical Review Policy

The two labels we use

Every editorial page on The HRT Index carries one of two labels in the byline area:

• Clinically reviewed by [Name, Credentials]— applied to pages a licensed clinician on our review board has read and signed off on. The reviewer's name, credentials, and the review date are visible in the byline.
• Editorial research — not medically reviewed — applied to pages that have not undergone clinical review. The label is plain language and prominent. The reader is told, explicitly, that the page is editorial research and is told to consult her own clinician before starting, stopping, or changing hormone therapy.

The labels are the most important trust signal we publish. We do not falsify them. We do not apply the “clinically reviewed” label to a page that has not been reviewed by a named clinician with appropriate credentials. Where a page is in the process of being reviewed but the review is not yet complete, the page carries the editorial-research label until the review is finished and signed off.

Who is qualified to review

A reviewer for The HRT Index must hold an active US licence in a relevant clinical discipline and have demonstrable expertise in the subject of the page. For HRT-specific content, that means one of the following:

• A physician (MD or DO) holding the NCMP (Certified Menopause Practitioner) credential from the Menopause Society, with active practice in menopause management.
• An OB/GYN, family-medicine, or internal-medicine physician with documented menopause-specialty practice or fellowship training.
• A nurse practitioner or physician assistant with active women's health practice, with preference for those holding the NCMP credential or equivalent.
• A clinical pharmacist (PharmD) for content focused on prescribing, interactions, or pharmacology.

A reviewer's discipline must match the content. A clinician reviews subject matter inside her area of competence; she does not sign off on subject matter outside it.

What the reviewer is signing off on

The reviewer is attesting that, to the best of her professional judgement, the clinical claims on the page are accurate, the framing is appropriate for the lay reader, and the page does not encourage the reader to take medical action without a real clinical encounter. The reviewer is not warranting the page's accuracy as a matter of legal certification; she is exercising professional judgement, and her judgement is the foundation of the credential we display.

How to identify clinically reviewed pages

A clinically reviewed page displays, at the top of the page next to the editorial team byline, the reviewer's name and credentials (for example, “Clinically reviewed by Jane Doe, MD, NCMP”) and a link to the reviewer's profile on our medical reviewers page. The page also carries the review date.

The honest note

Where pages on The HRT Index are not yet clinically reviewed, the reason is that the publication is in active build-out of its medical review board. We will not falsify review labels in order to ship pages faster. We will publish the editorial-research label until the review board is fully constituted and pages have been reviewed.

If you are a clinician interested in joining the review board, please reach the editorial team at our contact page. Candidates with NCMP credentials, OB/GYN practice with menopause specialisation, internal-medicine or family-medicine practice with menopause training, or PharmD credentials with women's-hormone-therapy experience are particularly welcome.

Reader questions

If you would like to know whether a specific page has been clinically reviewed, who reviewed it, when the review was performed, or what the reviewer attested to, please write to the editorial team. We will answer.