Editorial Policy

Most editorial policies describe a process. This one starts with a permission list, because the commonest failure in writing about health coverage is somebody answering a question they are not qualified to answer, confidently, in a way a reader then acts on.

Who is allowed to say what

The question	Who writes it here	Who actually decides
Do I qualify for this program	Priscilla Alaniz, MPH, CHW	HHSC, or the Marketplace
What does the rule say, and where is it written	Priscilla Alaniz	The agency that published it
Is this symptom urgent	Dr. Warren Ashby, MD, FAAFP	Your own clinician, in person
What is it like to go through this	Delia Fuentes	Nobody, it is experience
What will this specific clinic charge me	Nobody. We do not know	The clinic, after seeing your income proof

Priscilla Alaniz is a Certified Application Counselor under the federal Marketplace program and a Texas certified Community Health Worker. She writes the coverage, program, and billing content. Her credential lets her explain the rules and help with an application; it does not let her determine a case, and no article here claims otherwise.

Dr. Warren Ashby is a board certified family physician practicing at a federally qualified health center. He clears every article before it publishes. He holds the clinical content to current guidance from the American Academy of Family Physicians, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Health Resources and Services Administration. He does not sign off eligibility content, because a physician has no standing on county program rules or income limits, and a half remembered figure from last year could cost a reader a program.

Delia Fuentes writes the first person material and edits everything. She is not a clinician and not a counselor, and the site says so on her byline rather than burying it.

Reviewed articles show the reviewer’s name, credentials, and the date of review. Articles whose author and reviewer are different people say both.

The dated figures policy

This is the part of the site we are strictest about, because a wrong income limit does more damage than a wrong recovery time. Somebody who reads a stale number and concludes they do not qualify usually does not apply, and never finds out they were wrong.

Every figure carries a verification date and a named source of record. Not a citation to an article that cited an agency, the agency itself: HHSC, CMS, HRSA, the Census Bureau, KFF, the Texas Department of Insurance, the CFPB, or the Texas statutes. The figures live in one internal document so that a change is made once and propagates, rather than being patched article by article.

Two mandatory refresh windows.

• January. The federal poverty guidelines are reissued, and every limit expressed as a percentage of them changes with it. Nothing on this site carries a prior year poverty guideline after 31 January. Open enrollment closes in the same window, so the enrollment pages are checked at the same time.
• September. Open enrollment dates for the coming plan year, the subsidy structure that will apply to it, and the annual federal data releases.

Event driven refreshes happen outside those windows for anything that moves the ground: a Texas legislative session that changes an HHSC program, or a federal change to premium tax credits, which is the single most volatile fact on this site.

When a figure lapses, we say so. A number whose verification date has passed its window is flagged on the page as out of date and linked to the source, rather than left sitting there looking current. That is less tidy than quietly deleting it, and considerably more useful.

How articles get written

Research starts from the primary source and works outward, never the reverse. A rule is quoted from the agency that made it or the statute that created it, and linked so you can read it yourself. Where Texas differs from the national default, which is often, the article says so explicitly rather than leaving a reader to assume the general advice applies.

Where we do not know something, the article says that too. County indigent care programs vary by county, hospital financial assistance policies vary by hospital, and free clinic eligibility varies by clinic. Writing a confident average of those would be worse than useless.

Independence

Nobody pays to appear on this site. There is no advertising, no affiliate arrangement, no sponsored content, and no commercial relationship with any clinic, hospital, insurer, broker, or agency. The directory lists government finder tools and nonprofit databases, and links to them because they are the best available answer, not because of any arrangement. If that ever changes it will be disclosed on the page it affects, in the body text, not in a footer.

Corrections

If a figure here is wrong, we want to know quickly, and a correction is not an embarrassment. Write through Contact with the page and the specific number. Corrections to a figure are made at the source document first, then everywhere the figure appears, and the page carries a fresh verification date afterwards.