Transparency Score Methodology: How Every Point Is Earned

Verified Anti-Aging Clinics publishes a 0–100 Transparency Score for eligible clinic profiles. It measures disclosure evidence, not clinical quality, safety, or competence. Missing information is unavailable, not a negative finding about a clinic. This page explains the factors, alternatives, and evidence rules.

Eligible inputs include clinic-website and directly clinic-confirmed price records, separately aggregated patient reports, clinic-confirmed fee and contract disclosures, and provider-license evidence confirmed against a state board. Grade A specifically requires both a qualifying cash price published on the clinic's website and an active MD/DO physician license confirmed against a primary state-board record.

The seven factors

Point values are not all additive: clinic-sourced price evidence (30) and patient-reported pricing (15) are alternatives; a qualifying active MD/DO physician license (30) and a named-only clinician (5) are alternatives. The maximum score is 100. Direct clinic confirmation can earn the price factor, but Grade A requires a price published on the clinic's website. Points within a factor are all or nothing.

Clinic-sourced price evidence, 30 points

At least one clinic-sourced price on file must satisfy every condition below. A directly clinic-confirmed price can earn this 30-point factor, but Grade A requires that the eligible cash price be published on the clinic's website. Any single failure disqualifies a price; if no clinic-sourced price qualifies, the profile may fall through to patient-reported pricing.

• The source is the clinic's own website, or a price the clinic confirmed to us directly. No other source is eligible.
• A confidence score of at least 3 out of 5, reflecting how recent and how well sourced the figure is.
• A citable source URL is recorded. A price without one fails our build and cannot be published at all.
• Reported within the last 365 days. Older prices are hidden and stop scoring.
• Not contested. Where patients report paying materially differently and the clinic has not reconciled it, the price is suspended until resolved.
• Not superseded. A price the clinic has since replaced no longer counts, unless the replacement is itself contested.
• It is a treatment price. Memberships, enrollment fees, travel fees and float packages are useful disclosure but are not treatment prices.

Patient-reported pricing, 15 points

Awarded only when no eligible clinic-sourced price qualifies. This is why one clinic shows 30 and another 15: 15 means we hold no qualifying clinic-sourced price record for that clinic and the figure came from patients instead. The two never add together.

• At least three independent patient reports for the same treatment. Fewer than three are never displayed and never scored.
• At least three of those reports carry a usable numeric price.
• We publish the lowest, highest, and median figure, the number of reports, and the most recent report date, so the spread is visible rather than a single averaged number.
• Replaced when an eligible clinic-website or directly clinic-confirmed price record qualifies, which replaces this 15 with the 30-point clinic-source factor. Grade A still requires website publication.

Active MD/DO physician license, 30 points

A named physician with a recognized MD/DO license class and an active license record confirmed against a primary state-board source. Other license classes may receive a separate credential badge but do not earn this physician score factor. A board-record match does not establish clinic affiliation, clinical quality, treatment safety, or outcomes.

• The evidence record includes the primary-source page, license number, and issuing state or board.
• The source link resolves to that specific licence record. A board home page, a bare domain, or a search form carrying no record identifier is rejected, and two providers may never share one source link.
• The clinic's state is resolved from its own address or a postal-code index, never inferred from how we grouped it geographically.
• Only recognized MD/DO physician classes earn this +30 score factor. Other classes are not treated as a negative finding about a clinic.
• One licence earns this at one clinic. Where a single licence appears across several locations with no designated primary practice, it earns points at none of them.

Named clinician, 5 points

The clinic publishes a clinician's name and the qualifying active MD/DO physician factor is not earned. A provider identifier alone is not licensure. This 5-point factor and the +30 physician factor do not add together.

Itemized fee structure disclosed, 20 points

All three conditions are required.

• The clinic has confirmed something to us directly, as defined below. Automated detection alone never earns this factor.
• The disclosure separates the individual costs a patient will meet: laboratory work, consultations, follow-up visits, and medication, injection or pellet fees.
• A citable source URL for the disclosure is on file.

A general website phrase such as "free consultation" does not by itself establish an itemized fee structure. The calculator requires clinic confirmation and a source URL rather than awarding points from keyword matching alone.

Contract and subscription terms disclosed, 15 points

All three conditions are required, on the same basis as itemized fees.

• The clinic has confirmed the disclosure to us directly. Automated detection alone never earns this factor.
• The disclosure covers commitment length, cancellation policy, automatic-renewal behaviour, and refund rules.
• A citable source URL for the disclosure is on file.

Direct contact details published, 5 points

A listed phone line and an active website. This is a supporting point and never triggers an assessment by itself; contact details alone do not create a score.

What counts as confirmation

Itemized fees and contract terms both require clinic confirmation. The calculator applies an 84-point policy cap to unconfirmed records; under current factor rules, unconfirmed evidence totals no more than 40 points. A clinic is confirmed when any one of the following is true.

• At least one price the clinic itself attested to us, with no unresolved dispute against it.
• Fee or contract disclosures submitted by the clinic through its profile. This is recorded separately from anything our crawler detected, so a detected disclosure can never confirm itself.
• A provider licence we confirmed active against a state licensing board.

Claiming a profile is not by itself confirmation. Claiming is a workflow step; confirmation means the clinic stood behind specific information.

Unconfirmed records are subject to an 84-point policy cap. Under current factor rules, unconfirmed evidence totals no more than 40 points, below the 65-point Grade B threshold. The cap is a statement about evidence on file, not a finding about the clinic.

A disputed attestation is not treated as confirmed until the discrepancy is reconciled. Any remaining price records must qualify independently under the source rules above.

Score bands and grade labels

• Without a qualifying active MD/DO physician license, the maximum is 75: 30 clinic-sourced price evidence, 5 named clinician, 20 fees, 15 contract terms, and 5 contact. Grade A requires the physician +30 factor.
• A qualifying physician license plus clinic-sourced price evidence and contact details is 65. The price must also be published on the clinic's website for the Grade A lock.
• Grade A starts at 85 and requires both the eligible website-published cash price and qualifying active MD/DO license. A perfect 100-point score also includes itemized fees, contract terms, and direct contact details.

Credential badge and score are related but distinct

The badge is a separate display signal for an active provider license confirmed against a cited state-board source. A qualifying active MD/DO license also earns the score's +30 physician factor; other license classes may receive the badge but do not earn that factor. A failed or inconclusive check earns no badge and is not a finding that a license is inactive. A profile claim alone does not produce a badge or score points.

Why the weights changed

Pricing previously carried 45 points. The current calculator gives eligible clinic-sourced price evidence 30 and patient-reported aggregates 15 as alternatives; it also treats confirmed active licensing and a named-only provider as alternatives. Itemized fees and contract terms have more weight because they describe costs and commitments beyond a headline price. A former 15-point provider-identifier factor was removed because an identifier is not a state license. The current unconfirmed policy cap is 84, while unconfirmed factors currently total no more than 40 under their eligibility rules. A profile claim is not itself evidence or confirmation; clinics and consumers may submit corrections.

Corrections

Clinic owners, medical directors and authorised representatives may submit a correction or supporting source URL to corrections@verifiedantiagingclinics.com. A submission does not automatically change a published record; requests are queued for review. Response times may vary. See also our pricing methodology for the sources used for price records.