Almost every article we publish ends with a citation pointing back to a state board, a federal agency, or another primary source. That is a deliberate editorial choice, and it is worth explaining why we hold to it even when it slows us down.
The problem with secondary summaries
A lot of information about licensure and telehealth policy circulates as summaries of summaries — an article that cites another article that once cited a board page that may since have been updated or removed. Each retelling introduces a small chance of drift from the original, and in a field where a single word difference can change whether a rule applies, that drift matters more than it would for less consequential topics.
What citing primary sources actually buys
Linking directly to a board's page, an agency's rule text, or a compact commission's official materials gives readers a way to verify what we have written for themselves, rather than trusting our interpretation alone. It also gives us, as an editorial team, a forcing function: if we cannot find a primary source for a claim, we generally treat that as a signal to soften the claim or research further before publishing.
A citation is not decoration at the bottom of a post — it is the mechanism that lets a reader stop trusting us and start verifying for themselves.
Where this gets harder
Not every state board maintains a clean, stable, easily linkable page for every rule, and agency websites are occasionally reorganized in ways that break old links or bury older guidance. When a primary source is difficult to pin down precisely, we try to be explicit about that uncertainty rather than presenting a qualitative description as if it were a precise citation.
What this means for how you should read us
We think of our articles as a well-organized starting point, not a substitute for checking the current source directly, especially before making any decision that depends on getting the details exactly right. That is true of this article as much as any other.
This is exactly why we say it on every post: 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.