Where our information comes from and how we check it

The first source is the organization’s own website: its contacts, branches, price lists and lists of doctors. Next come official registers and directories: the state register of legal entities (e-register.moj.am), the website of the Universal Health Insurance Fund (uhif.am), the Spyur directory (spyur.am), and Google, Yandex and 2GIS maps.

If the source does not say it, neither do we. When we cannot confirm a price, we do not put in a plausible number — we write “ask the clinic”.

• Address, phone and opening hours come first of all from the organization’s website. When the website, Spyur, the maps and the Fund give different addresses for a branch, we use the one on the organization’s own website, and we put a pin on the map only if two independent sources confirm it.
• Legal details (legal name, tax ID, director) come from the state register and Spyur. Before recording them we check that the legal entity is still active and has not been dissolved.
• Price lists come from the clinic’s or laboratory’s website. Under each one there is a link to it and the date we took the snapshot. If a price list is old, every line of it carries its year.
• Services under the state programme and their tariffs come from the Fund’s website uhif.am, with a link and the snapshot date.
• Google, Yandex and 2GIS ratings of clinics, pharmacies and labs are shown with a link to the platform, the number of reviews and the date — and only when the platform has at least five reviews.
• When an organization does not publish its information in Armenian, Russian or English, we translate it ourselves. On price lists and services such a translation is labelled as a Medaro translation.

We collected doctor profiles from the doctors’ pages on clinic websites. Every such profile has a “Where this information comes from” block: a link to that very clinic page and the date we took it.

The doctor did not fill in or confirm such a profile: it contains exactly what the clinic publishes. The “Credentials verified” mark goes only to a doctor who registered on Medaro and sent a diploma and certificate — a moderator checks them by hand.

• The name is written the way the clinic writes it. If the clinic gives only an initial and a surname, that is what the profile is called: we do not fill in the rest.
• The specialty is the one the clinic states. If it states none, we do not add one or guess. Psychologists, speech therapists, massage therapists and other specialists who are not doctors are shown with their real job title.
• We treat a doctor at two clinics as one person only if first name, surname, patronymic and profession all match, if the clinic itself lists them at several of its branches, or if the doctor writes on a clinic website that they also see patients elsewhere. Then their page lists all their clinics; otherwise these are two separate profiles.
• The photo comes from the clinic website, if the clinic publishes one. A doctor or a clinic can ask us to remove it with the “Spotted an error? Let us know” button on the doctor’s page — we remove it without discussion.
• We do not list nurses, administrators or other staff who do not see patients.

We check that every fact comes from a source and was copied accurately. But we do not call every clinic and we do not check doctors in person: a clinic website can lag behind reality — a doctor has left, a number has changed, a price has gone up. Call to confirm before your visit.

We update information by going through organizations’ websites again, not on a common schedule. You can see how fresh it is from the date: it is shown on price lists, on state-programme services and on doctor profiles. Phones, addresses and opening hours of organizations do not have a “where from” line on the page yet.

Anything doubtful we find along the way — two different addresses for one branch, a pin on the wrong building, similar names of different legal entities — we write down and re-check instead of publishing a guess.

A review is written by a person with an account and a confirmed email, about their own visit. There are no anonymous reviews, but nobody will see your name: how the signature works is explained below.

You can review any doctor whose profile is published, including one collected from a clinic website, as well as a clinic, pharmacy or laboratory.

Went with your child or accompanied a relative? Write about that visit in your own name.

• One person — one review of one doctor or one organization.
• No more than three reviews from one account in 30 days.
• The text must be at least 150 characters. Give the date of the visit and the clinic: they tell the moderator which appointment you mean.
• We do not publish reviews by doctors about themselves or their colleagues.

Nobody sees a new review except you: in your account, under “My reviews”, it is marked “In moderation”. Only a Medaro moderator can release it onto the doctor’s or organization’s page, after reading it in full. Nothing is published automatically.

We reject wording, not opinions: a harsh but honest review is published just like a glowing one. If a review is rejected, we write the reason to the email you registered with — usually the text can be fixed.

• The review is about a specific visit: it has a date and a clinic.
• It has specifics. “Everything was fine” does not help the next patient.
• It has ratings: an overall one and three partial ones — attitude, explanation, how the appointment was organised.
• It has no insults, accusations of crimes, other people’s personal data, advertising or treatment advice for other readers.
• It shows no signs of manipulation: bursts of reviews about one doctor, identical texts from different people.

You give an overall rating from one to five stars and three partial ones: attitude and attentiveness, explanation and outcome, how the appointment was organised. The overall rating goes into the score; the partial ones are shown separately.

The rating is not a plain average. To every doctor’s reviews we add five notional ratings of 4.2. While there are few reviews, they keep the score close to that number: a doctor with three fives gets 4.5, not 5.0. The more real reviews, the weaker their effect.

The point is simple: three glowing reviews are easy to arrange, but they cannot move the rating much. And one angry one-star will not sink a doctor who has many good reviews.

A review can get the “Verified visit” mark if a one-time code is entered with it — a code the clinic hands out after the appointment (a card with a QR code or a six-digit code, valid for 14 days). Such a review counts double in the rating.

So far no clinic hands out these codes, so there are no reviews with this mark on the site yet. Without a code a review is published all the same, just without the mark.

• Stars appear once a doctor has three or more reviews. With one or two we show only their number; with none — “No reviews yet”.
• Next to the rating you can see what it is made of: how many reviews, and how many of them with a verified visit.
• Clinics, pharmacies and laboratories are rated the same way.
• For doctors we show only our own rating: other platforms do not check whether the author actually saw this doctor.

A doctor who has confirmed their profile with documents can reply publicly to a review about them, once. The reply goes through the same moderation as reviews.

If a doctor believes the visit never happened or the review breaks the rules, they can complain to the moderator. The complaint changes nothing by itself: the review stays on the page and in the rating, and the decision is made by the moderator under the publication rules, not by the doctor.

• A doctor does not see reviews before they are published.
• Cannot approve, hide or delete reviews about themselves.
• Does not see who wrote a review — only the signature.
• Has no “dispute this review” button: only a public reply and a complaint to the moderator.

Nobody. A review is signed “First name L.” or with a signature you choose yourself.

The doctor does not see your phone, email or profile. They can only reply publicly, under the review.

The link “who — about which doctor — when” is data about your health. In our database it is closed to everyone except you and the moderator. We can hand it over only on a lawful demand from an authorised state body; at the request of a doctor or a clinic — never.

Your reviews and their status are visible in your account. There are no edit or delete buttons there yet: to change or delete a review, or to delete your account, write to info@medaro.am from the address your account is registered with.

Write to us — we read everything that comes in.

• An error on a doctor’s, clinic’s, pharmacy’s or laboratory’s page — the “Spotted an error? Let us know” button on that page. No account needed. We correct things only against a confirmed source.
• You are a doctor and want your profile or photo removed — use the same button or write to info@medaro.am. We remove it without discussion, within 24 hours.
• Seen an insult, someone’s personal data or signs of manipulation in a review — write to info@medaro.am with a link to the page.
• You are a doctor and want a profile with the “Credentials verified” mark — see the “For doctors” section: the form and document upload are there.