Editorial Policy — Medical Review

Content on Clearwater Behavioral passes through a clinical review process before publication. This page explains who reviews what, what credentials they hold, and how we handle conflicts between what a writer drafts and what the reviewing clinician concludes.

Who reviews what

Articles on Clearwater Behavioral are assigned a subject-matter reviewer before publication. The reviewer's clinical specialty must overlap the article's topic — otherwise the article doesn't get published.

• Substance-specific guides (alcohol, opioids, stimulants, benzodiazepines): reviewed by a physician or APRN with addiction-medicine practice experience.
• Medication-assisted treatment content (buprenorphine, methadone, naltrexone, acamprosate): reviewed by a clinician actively prescribing MAT and familiar with current DEA and HHS regulations.
• Detox and withdrawal-management guides: reviewed by a clinician with inpatient or residential withdrawal-management experience.
• Dual-diagnosis and psychiatric-comorbidity content: reviewed by a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist with SUD experience.
• Pregnancy, perinatal, and pediatric SUD content: reviewed by a clinician practicing in perinatal addiction or adolescent medicine.
• Insurance, legal, and policy content: reviewed by a health-policy analyst; clinical implications flagged for clinician sign-off where relevant.

The review sequence

Every article goes through three stages:

1. Draft: staff writer builds the article from primary sources — peer-reviewed studies, federal agency publications (SAMHSA, NIDA, CMS), state regulatory text. Draft includes a sourced citation for every specific claim.
2. Fact-check: a second writer verifies each citation, statistic, and quoted passage against the original source. Discrepancies are flagged for resolution.
3. Clinical review: a credentialed reviewer with subject-matter expertise reads the article for accuracy, currency, and safety. Objections must be resolved before publication; if the reviewer and writer can't agree, an article is held rather than forced live.

This is slower than industry-standard directory-site content pipelines. We publish fewer articles per month as a result. That trade-off is deliberate — YMYL (Your Money Your Life) content about addiction treatment affects decisions with real consequences, and clinical accuracy matters more than publication cadence.

When clinical evidence is contested

Some questions in addiction medicine have settled answers; others don't. Our standard is to present the state of the evidence rather than pick a side where the clinical literature is divided.

• Medication-assisted treatment: supported by decades of evidence; we present it as the current clinical gold standard for opioid use disorder, per NIDA and ASAM guidelines.
• 12-step vs. non-12-step programs: both show efficacy for appropriate patient populations; we cover each without ranking them as "better."
• Abstinence-only vs. harm-reduction models: we present evidence from both approaches; harm reduction is increasingly recognized in federal and state guidance but remains debated.

Facility listings and accreditation verification

Our 21,568-facility directory is drawn from SAMHSA's public Behavioral Health Treatment Services Locator. We re-sync against this federal source quarterly. Where possible, we cross-reference with:

• State licensing boards for facility license status
• The Joint Commission and CARF accreditation databases
• State Medicaid provider directories for insurance-acceptance verification

When sources disagree, we default to the federal filing (most legally accountable) and note the discrepancy on the listing.

Corrections, disputes, and reader feedback

To flag a clinical error, accreditation change, or information inconsistency: use the editorial contact form. We prioritize corrections over new content — if a published claim is inaccurate, fixing it comes first.

A facility may request an update to its own directory entry. We verify the request against the facility's current SAMHSA filing before updating. Unverifiable change requests are held.

Conflict of interest disclosure

Staff writers and reviewers disclose any direct clinical or financial relationship with treatment facilities covered on the site. Reviewers recuse themselves from reviewing content about their own employer or any facility where they hold an ownership interest. Clearwater Behavioral does not accept payment from treatment facilities to influence rankings, review content, or directory placement.