Methodology

What the provider score measures

The score grades what a provider publishes about itself, which makes it a disclosure and transparency rubric and nothing more than that.

It says nothing about the quality of care a company delivers, the skill of its prescribers, or the safety of what it dispenses. Those are clinical questions, and this site is not positioned to answer them.

What it does measure is whether a buyer can check the basics before paying. Scores are printed as text in a real table on each board, on a zero to ten scale with one decimal, so the ordering can be checked rather than taken on trust.

The four declared inputs

Four facts are recorded as a plain true or false on each provider's record, and nothing else feeds the score.

Pharmacy named. The provider names, on its own site, the compounding pharmacy that fills its prescriptions.

Price published. A price is published on the provider's own site, with the qualifier that makes it true, such as a starting rate, a billing cycle, or a plan term.

All fifty states. The provider publishes availability across all fifty states. State coverage is recorded exactly as the provider lists it.

Labs included. Lab work is included in the published price rather than billed separately.

What a false flag actually means

A false flag means the provider does not publish that fact, and it is not a claim that the fact is untrue.

A company may well name its pharmacy on a phone call with a new patient. If the name is not published, a buyer cannot check it before paying, and the rubric measures what a buyer can check.

No published state list is not the same as nationwide. The two are recorded differently, and the board prints the difference.

What never enters the score

A commercial relationship. A paid partner and a provider that pays us nothing are scored by the same four flags.

An FDA warning letter. Letters are disclosed on the provider's review and never scored, because most concern marketing and labeling rather than the contents of a vial.

The evidence grade of the compounds a provider sells. That grades the compound, not the seller.

An opinion of the brand, its design, or its marketing.

How prices are handled

Every price carries a qualifier and the date it was read from the provider's own published page.

A price is never advanced to a newer date without reading the source again. A seller writing in to say its price is lower is a reason to re-check the page, not a price in itself.

Prices change without notice, so the provider's page is the authority, and no figure on this site is an offer.

The evidence grade is a different instrument

The compound evidence grade belongs to the compound and never to the seller. Sermorelin's grade does not change depending on who sells it.

For that reason the grade is rendered once per board, near the top, and never beside each provider row. Putting it in a row would imply the grade is a property of the vendor, which is the opposite of true.

The principle behind the grades is set out in the editorial policy.

When a board publishes with no providers

Where no seller can be shown to publish what the rubric asks for, the board publishes with no provider rows and explains why.

That is a deliberate outcome of the rubric rather than a page waiting to be filled.

Changes to the rubric

If an input is added, removed, or redefined, the change is stated here with the date it took effect, and every affected board is scored again under the new definition.

A rubric that quietly changes shape is not a rubric, so changes are printed rather than absorbed.