How we score and rank

Three decisions we keep apart

1. Editorial eligibility. may this business be scored and ranked at all.
2. Advertising eligibility. may this business buy a labeled placement.
3. Rank. where the score puts it.

These are decided by different rules and they are never merged. The ranking query reads the scores table and the eligibility flags. It has no join to the table that holds paid placements. A business that also buys marketing services from the owner of this site never holds a place in a top ten.

Star ratings are not part of the score

The score is five checks we run ourselves. A business's star rating is not one of them, and you will not find one anywhere on this site. The terms behind those ratings do not let a directory like this one use them, so we show no Google rating and we keep no copy of one. Everything on a profile is something we checked or something we say plainly we have not checked yet, with the source beside it and the date wherever we hold one.

How the checking is done

Software does it. We pull the public files the state of Florida publishes, match each business to the records in them, read what the business publishes about itself on its own website, and take what a business sends us when it writes in. Then we fact-check as far as those sources allow. That is the whole method. There is no panel of editors, there is no second scorer, and nobody telephones these businesses to see how fast they answer.

A person does two things here. Someone signs a page before it is published, and someone decides whether a state record about a business is firm enough to print. Everything else on this site is matching.

That is also the limit of it. We can tell you what the state's file says and what a business says about itself. We cannot tell you how the work turned out.

The five checks

• License, tied to the service and location (verification). An active license in the right class held by a practitioner or qualifier affiliated with this business at this location, confirmed on the regulator's current record within 90 days, scores 15. Active but affiliation unconfirmed scores 8 and is flagged.
• Discipline history (verification). No final disciplinary action in five years scores full points. A final action older than five years scores 6 and is disclosed. A final action within five years scores 0 and is disclosed with case number, date, disposition and source. A final revocation excludes.
• Entity age (verification). Years since the Florida entity filing, labeled entity filed rather than founded: under 2 scores 1, two to five scores 3, over five scores 5. Only a filing that is currently active counts.
• Presence in the city (local presence). A staffed location in the city scores 10, a location in the county with the city in its stated service area scores 6, serving the city from outside the county scores 2.
• Website names its services and the cities it serves (local presence). A working website that names the work it does and cities it serves scores 5, a website without those scores 2, no website scores 0. One website check covers the business, so it is not evidence that the site names one particular city.

The full specification, including what happens when data is missing.

What keeps a business off a ranked list

• No active license found where one is required.
• A final revocation or suspension in force.
• An upheld finding about a business's review history.
• No verifiable Florida presence.
• A check we could not finish. If any one of the five is unfinished, we do not know enough to put that business in an order against its neighbors.
• A state record we have not settled. Either we cannot say for certain it belongs to that business, or it does and the business still has its week to reply.

A business in any of those cases is shown as not ranked, in those words. It stays listed, it keeps its page and its number, it keeps its right to respond, and it can still request a free correction. Some of these lists are short as a result, and a few are empty. We would rather publish a short list that is true than a long one that is not.

Notice before we publish a state record

Before we publish a final disciplinary action against a business, we write to it at its record address or phone and give it seven days to reply. The reply is published with the finding. Until that is done the record is held, nothing about it is printed, and the business holds no ranked place. This is the one promise on this page that a person carries out, and the queue that holds those records is what stops the site publishing one early.

Allegations are never stated as findings. Every adverse fact names the business, the proceeding, the date, the disposition and the source.

How often this is rechecked

• License and discipline records quarterly.
• Full re-score and re-rank quarterly.
• Edition year rolls on a fixed annual date.
• A listing is relabeled or removed as soon as we have checked a report that a regulator record has changed.

What the score does not measure

Legal skill. Clinical outcomes. Workmanship. Whether a business is right for you. We say this on every page that shows a score because it is the honest limit of what public records can tell anyone.