Every alert we publish starts as a detected change on a source we monitor — a state board page, the Federal Register, a compact commission update — and ends, sometimes days later, as a plain-language summary in a subscriber's inbox. Here is what actually happens in between.
Detection
We monitor state medical board sites, the Federal Register, CCHP updates, and compact commission publications on a recurring basis. When something changes on a source we track, it enters a review queue rather than publishing automatically.
Human review
An editor reads the underlying source material directly, not just the detected diff, and evaluates whether the change is substantive enough to warrant an alert. Plenty of detected changes turn out to be cosmetic — a page redesign, a broken link fixed, a date format change — and those do not get published as alerts.
A detected change and a published alert are not the same thing — the gap between them is where our editorial judgment does its work.
Writing the summary
For changes judged substantive, the editor writes a plain-language summary explaining what changed and what, if anything, a physician needs to do about it, and attaches the primary source. We aim for summaries that a physician can act on without needing to read the underlying regulatory text themselves, though we always link to that text.
Severity and publication
Each alert gets a severity tag before it publishes — informational, action needed, or urgent — based on whether there is a compliance deadline attached and how soon it falls. Only after this review and tagging does an alert go out.
This process is ours, and we describe it here so you know what stands between a source changing and an alert reaching you. Requirements vary by state and change over time — always confirm current requirements directly with the relevant state board or agency before making a compliance decision.