Editorial Policy

Effective Date: April 18, 2026 Last Updated: April 18, 2026

Our Commitment to Clear, Honest Medicare Information

Medicare is complicated. The stakes, health, cost, coverage for things you actually need, are high. People deserve content they can trust.

This Editorial Policy describes how we research, write, review, and update content on The Medicare Desk. It is a statement of our commitments to readers, and a standard we hold ourselves to.

Our Mission

We help people understand Medicare: what it covers, what it costs, how to choose among the options, and how to avoid the most common mistakes. We write for people approaching Medicare eligibility, current Medicare beneficiaries, and the family members helping them navigate enrollment decisions.

Editorial Principles

1. Accuracy Over Speed

Medicare rules change. Plan details change every year. We verify facts against primary sources before publishing: CMS.gov, Medicare.gov, the Federal Register, carrier filings, and peer-reviewed research where relevant. When we cite statistics, we link to the source.

When we make a mistake, we correct it. See Corrections below.

2. Plain Language

Medicare is full of jargon: IRMAA, MOOP, donut hole, SEP, AEP, IEP. We define terms in context, avoid unnecessary acronyms, and translate bureaucratic language into how it actually affects your decisions.

If you cannot tell what a paragraph means, we have not done our job.

3. Editorial Independence

Our content decisions are independent of our business relationships.

• A company cannot pay to be recommended, ranked, or mentioned favorably
• A company cannot pay to be excluded from criticism
• Our affiliate partners do not review or approve our content before publication
• Our comparisons reflect our honest assessment, not commission rates

For full detail on how affiliate relationships work and do not work, see our Affiliate Disclosure.

4. Whole-Picture Coverage

We cover Medicare options holistically, including options where we earn nothing. If the best answer for a particular person is to stick with Original Medicare, or to use their State Health Insurance Assistance Program (SHIP), or to call Medicare directly, we say so.

Our job is to help you understand your options, not to steer you toward ours.

5. No Fear, No Hype

Medicare marketing is notorious for fear-based messaging ("You will be penalized forever!") and hype ("Get benefits you did not know you qualified for!"). We avoid both.

We explain consequences accurately, including the real penalties that exist for missing certain enrollment periods, without exaggeration or manipulation.

How We Produce Content

Research

Every article begins with primary-source research. Our core sources include:

• Medicare.gov and CMS.gov, official plan details, rules, and guidance
• Federal Register, regulatory changes and proposed rules
• Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), independent health policy research
• Congressional Research Service (CRS), nonpartisan analysis
• Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), policy recommendations
• Peer-reviewed journals, health economics and healthcare research
• State Insurance Departments, state-specific rules and consumer protections
• Insurance carrier filings, plan-level details

We supplement primary sources with interviews, case examples, and practical observations when they add value to the reader.

Writing

Articles are drafted by our editorial contributors. Where we use AI-assisted drafting as part of our workflow, a qualified human editor reviews, fact-checks, and finalizes every piece before publication. No article is published as raw machine output.

Review

Before publication, every article is reviewed for:

• Factual accuracy, does every claim trace back to a reliable source?
• Regulatory currency, does this reflect the current plan year and current CMS rules?
• Clarity, would a reader new to Medicare understand this?
• Completeness, does this cover the question from the reader's perspective, not just the writer's?
• Balance, does this fairly represent alternatives, including those we do not profit from?

Publishing

Articles are published with a visible publication date and, when updated, a "Last Updated" date. When an article covers plan-year-specific details (premiums, deductibles, coverage limits), the relevant plan year is clearly stated.

Updating

Medicare content ages quickly. We review published articles regularly and update them when:

• Annual plan year changes take effect (typically each fall for the following year)
• Federal regulations or CMS guidance change
• Carrier plan offerings, premiums, benefits, or networks change materially
• New research or data becomes available that changes the analysis
• A reader or contributor identifies an inaccuracy

When we make a material update to an article, we note it.

Corrections

If you find an error in our content, a factual inaccuracy, an outdated figure, a missing caveat, a broken link, please tell us. We take corrections seriously.

Email: [email protected]

Please include the article URL and a brief description of the error. We review correction requests promptly. When we make a correction, we note it at the bottom of the article along with the date the correction was made.

Sources and Citations

We cite sources inline with links wherever practical. Readers should be able to verify our claims by following our citations to the primary source.

When we summarize or paraphrase complex material, a federal regulation, a research finding, a CMS guidance document, we link to the original so you can read it yourself.

Relationships and Potential Conflicts

Financial Relationships

The Medicare Desk earns revenue through affiliate partnerships, as described in our Affiliate Disclosure. Where a specific article contains affiliate links, a disclosure is visible to the reader.

Editorial Independence from Partners

No affiliate partner has editorial review, approval, or veto rights over our content. Partners cannot buy favorable coverage, exclusion from criticism, or preferential ranking in comparisons.

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts

If an article discusses a partner we have a financial relationship with, the relationship is disclosed in the article or via our standard affiliate disclosure.

What We Do Not Do

The Medicare Desk does not:

• Accept payment from companies in exchange for positive coverage
• Accept payment to suppress negative coverage
• Allow affiliate partners to write, edit, or approve our editorial content
• Publish sponsored content that is presented as independent editorial

AI-Assisted Content

We use AI tools (including large language models) as part of our research, drafting, and editing workflow. Every article published on The Medicare Desk is reviewed, fact-checked, and finalized by a qualified human editor before publication. We do not publish raw AI output.

Where AI tools help us produce content faster, we use that efficiency to cover more topics in more depth, not to cut corners on accuracy, review, or verification.

Reader Feedback

We welcome reader questions, corrections, suggestions, and topic requests:

Email: [email protected]

We read every message. We may not respond to every message individually, but reader input meaningfully shapes what we cover and how.

Changes to This Policy

This Editorial Policy will evolve as we grow and learn. Material changes will be noted in the "Last Updated" date at the top of this page.

Contact

Tojocu LLC 10869 N Scottsdale Rd, Suite 103 PMB 556 Scottsdale, AZ 85254 United States

Editorial / General Inquiries: [email protected] Legal / Compliance: [email protected]