How We Verify

Source hierarchy

Every claim on this platform is sourced at the highest available tier:

1. S1 — Korean government and official sources: KHIDI, MOHW, NFS, K-MEDI, statutes.
2. S2 — Professional bodies and registries: KSPRS, KAHF, KOIHA, ASPS.
3. S3 — Peer-reviewed literature (PubMed-indexed).
4. S4 — Named quality journalism: Korea Herald, NYT, and equivalents.
5. S5 — Our own documented methodology (cost sampling with methodology page).
6. S6 — Community sentiment (Reddit, forums) — labeled as such, never as fact.

The fact-check process

Before any clinical article is published, a fact-checker who did not write the article checks every claim against its source. That check is initialed and logged. This named accountability is what our verification strips mean when they say "fact-checked against primary sources."

What we never do

We never invent sources, launder secondary sources as primary, or cite a source we have not read. We never claim medical review via structured data markup that has not occurred. We are researchers and editors, not physicians — and we say so on every page.

Dates and re-verification

Every page shows its publication date, last-modified date, and last-verified date. We re-verify: cost and regulation pages quarterly, clinical pages annually, logistics pages semi-annually. The last-verified date updates only on genuine re-check, not on minor copy edits.