Editorial Policy

Version: v1.0 · Published: 2026-04-26 · Next substantive review: 2027-04-26 Editorial contact: editorial@wellchina.top · Legal contact: legal@wellchina.top

Jump to: What we won't publish · Three-tier review model · Corrections SLA · Conflict of interest · Compliance · Version history

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How to read this

This is not marketing copy.

Every commitment below is a rule WellChina holds itself to. If a specific page on WellChina doesn't follow this policy, it is either a bug or a violation — please report it to editorial@wellchina.top and the team will respond per the corrections SLA.

This policy also describes what WellChina does not publish. Medical travel information is a domain where it is easy to imply more authority than one has; we believe stating limits explicitly is more useful than leaving them implicit.

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Who we are

WellChina, operated by Shenzhen Hewen Technology Co., Ltd., is an independent information platform for foreign patients navigating medical care in China. The platform aggregates verified hospital data, structured procedure information, multi-country pricing benchmarks, and travel logistics so that patients and their families can make informed decisions before, during, and after a medical trip.

WellChina is editorially and operationally independent of any hospital, clinic, physician group, or insurance carrier. The platform is an information intermediary — comparable in role to Patients Beyond Borders or Bookimed — and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment recommendations.

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What we publish

WellChina maintains six categories of public content:

1. Hospital directory — verified profiles for hospitals operating across multiple Chinese cities, including accreditation status (JCI and equivalents), specialty coverage, English-language capability, and international patient services.
2. Procedure catalog — structured information on medical procedures across multiple specialty categories, with provider lists and standardized price data.
3. Pricing benchmarks — comparative cost data across multiple countries, with explicit timestamps, exchange rate sources, and sample-size disclosure.
4. City medical-travel guides — practical logistics (visa, transport, accommodation, emergency contacts) for cities where partner hospitals operate.
5. General travel guides — visa, payment, insurance, booking, and aftercare logistics. These are not medical advice.
6. Medical narrative articles — long-form pillar content (e.g., dental tourism guides, condition-specific procedure overviews) containing clinical descriptions, candidate criteria, recovery expectations, and risk discussion. These are subject to the strictest review tier described below.

Each category has a different evidence and review requirement. See § Three-tier review model.

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What we do NOT publish

The following content categories are off-limits regardless of demand. These are firm editorial red lines:

• Personalized diagnostic or treatment advice. WellChina does not tell readers which doctor "is right for your symptoms" or which procedure "you should choose." That is a medical decision requiring a licensed clinician with access to the patient's records.
• "Best hospital for [a specific condition]" claims unless explicitly anchored to a citable third-party ranking (e.g., U.S. News, Newsweek World's Best Hospitals, JCI accreditation tier). When such rankings are referenced, the source and publication year are cited.
• Drug names, dosages, prescription guidance, or contraindications in any narrative form. Medication information is the domain of treating physicians and licensed pharmacists.
• Cure rates, success rates, or efficacy percentages that lack a peer-reviewed primary source. Marketing-grade statistics from hospital websites are not acceptable evidence.
• Clinical content that does not trace to authoritative sources. Procedure mechanism, indications, contraindications, recovery expectations, and risk discussion — in any language — must trace to peer-reviewed journals, the Joint Commission International, the World Health Organization, U.S. NIH/CDC, or recognized national medical bodies. Hospital marketing materials, social media, forum anecdotes, and unofficial translations of clinical guidelines are not acceptable substitutes.
• Patient-identifying information tied to clinical detail — diagnosis, treatment outcome, before/after clinical imagery, or specific medical records — even with informal consent. Authorized patient testimonials about non-clinical aspects of the medical-travel experience (logistics, communication, hospitality, cultural adaptation) are permitted with a written release and are clearly labeled as testimonials rather than evidence.
• Paid placement in rankings, comparison tables, or recommendation surfaces. No hospital, clinic, physician, or third party can pay to appear higher in the directory, to be promoted in comparison tables, or to be omitted from a price comparison.
• Commercial relationships disclosed only in the footer. Where any commercial relationship affects the content shown on a page — paid coordinator availability, affiliate-linked booking, insurance referral arrangements — the relationship is disclosed inline on the affected page, not only in the site footer or in a buried policy.

If you find content that falls into any of these categories, that is a violation of this policy. Please report it.

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Three-tier review model

A common practice in medical-information publishing is to claim every page is "medically reviewed." WellChina does not make that claim, because on most directory-style sites it is not true in practice — including on sites that do make it.

Pages that present facts about a business (a hospital's name, address, accreditation; a price; a city's visa rules) require editorial verification. Pages that contain clinical narrative (what a procedure is, who is a candidate, what the risks are, how recovery proceeds) require licensed medical review.

This split is consistent with how Cleveland Clinic structures /services and /locations (no medical reviewer byline) versus /health articles (medical reviewer byline), and with how Bookimed structures single-clinic profiles (no reviewer) versus procedure narrative pages and listicles (reviewer required). It is also consistent with Google's Search Quality Rater Guidelines §3.4.1, which distinguishes "experience" content from "information or advice" content within YMYL topics.

The bulk of WellChina is Tier A. Worked examples:

• /hospitals/[name] (any hospital profile) → Tier A. Contact information, accreditation, specialties, services list, prices. No medical advice.
• /procedures and /procedures/[category] (catalog and category indexes) → Tier A.
• /procedures/[category]/[slug] (data-only release) → Tier A. Price table, provider list, duration, recovery window.
• /pricing and /compare (price comparison surfaces) → Tier A.
• /cities/[name] (city medical-travel guides) → Tier A. Logistics and government-source facts.
• /guides/visa and /guides/payment → Tier A. Immigration and financial information; not medicine.
• /procedures/[category]/[slug] with narrative sections (What is / Candidates / Risks / Recovery / Aftercare) → Tier B.
• /guides/dental-tourism-china-2026 and other long-form pillar articles → Tier B.

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Editorial standards

Concrete commitments. Numerical, not aspirational:

1. Prices are re-verified every 90 days. Each price row carries a Last verified: YYYY-MM-DD field. Foreign-currency prices use a daily snapshot from a published exchange-rate source taken at a fixed UTC time; the snapshot date is shown next to converted figures.
2. Tier B content carries ≥ 3 authoritative citations, drawn from: hospital official websites, the Joint Commission International directory, PubMed-indexed journals, Cochrane reviews, the World Health Organization, U.S. NIH/CDC, and recognized national medical bodies (including the Chinese National Medical Council and Chinese Medical Association registries).
3. Hospital NAP (name, address, phone) is verified against at least two independent sources: the hospital's official website and either the JCI directory (if accredited) or a government licensing registry.
4. Tier B content is re-reviewed every 12 months. Each Tier B page carries a nextReviewDue date. If the date is missed by more than 30 days, the page is automatically returned to noindex, follow until re-review completes.
5. Material edits are timestamped on the affected page. Substantive corrections are logged in the public editorial changelog (see § Corrections policy).
6. Internal editorial audits of standards adherence are conducted on a quarterly basis; findings are tracked against the commitments above.

Where a commitment is process-only without a published timestamp or audit trail, treat it as marketing — not policy.

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Medical review process

This section describes the publication path for Tier B pages — those carrying clinical narrative content.

1. Editor draft by an in-house editor.
2. Editorial gate — a 9-point pre-review checklist that must pass before any reviewer sees the page. The gate covers: original synthesis (not paraphrased third-party content), inline citations, factual sourcing, language red-list scan (no diagnostic verbs, no superlatives, no untestable claims), schema completeness, freshness window, internal-link integrity, accessibility, and unique value beyond aggregation.
3. Medical reviewer sign-off. Reviewers must hold:
   • An active license in the relevant specialty, verified against the issuing authority's directory
   • Board certification or equivalent credential
   • A minimum of 5 years of clinical practice
   • No active disciplinary action on file with their licensing body
   • A LinkedIn or institutional affiliation page linked via schema sameAs
4. Schema injection. On publication the page receives reviewedBy (Person + credentials), lastReviewed (ISO date), and nextReviewDue fields. Each reviewer has an individual /reviewers/[slug] profile page with full credentials and disclosure.
5. Annual re-review per Editorial standards item 4.

WellChina does not list a reviewer's name on a content page until reviewer signing — including credential verification and onboarding — is complete. Stock photos, anonymous "Editorial Board" signatures, and unverified credentials are not used as a substitute for a named, qualified reviewer.

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Sources and verification

What WellChina sources from, by data type:

What WellChina does NOT source from:

• Social media or forum traffic — anecdotes are not evidence.
• Hospital marketing brochures, when used to support clinical claims.
• Aggregate review sites without sample-size and verification disclosure.
• Unofficial translations of clinical guidelines.

When two sources conflict, the conflict is stated on the page along with which source is relied on and why. Conflicting figures are not silently averaged or flattered.

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Corrections policy

WellChina commits to a tiered service-level agreement for factual corrections:

How to report: email editorial@wellchina.top with the page URL and a description of the issue. A primary source link, where available, accelerates verification.

What happens after correction:

• Material edits are timestamped on the affected page.
• Substantive and safety-relevant corrections are logged in the public editorial changelog.
• Corrections are not retracted silently — once a fix is logged, it stays logged.

For takedown or right-of-reply requests from named hospitals, physicians, or other parties, see § Compliance and jurisdiction.

This policy is reflected in WellChina's Organization Schema.org markup as correctionsPolicy, pointing to this section.

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Conflict of interest

WellChina holds the following commitments:

1. No paid ranking. No hospital, clinic, physician, or third party can pay to appear higher in the directory, to be promoted in comparison tables, or to be omitted from a price comparison. Editorial positioning is determined by published criteria, not by commercial relationships.
2. Inline disclosure. Any page where a commercial relationship affects what is shown — paid coordinator availability, affiliate-linked booking, insurance referral commission — carries a clearly visible disclosure on that page. Footer-only or buried-policy disclosure is not sufficient.
3. Editorial integrity. Editorial decisions about hospital inclusion, procedure information, pricing data, and review tier assignment are made on standards published in this document, not on commercial considerations.
4. Gifts, hospitality, and sponsored visits. Hospital-funded site visits, when accepted, are disclosed on every page that resulted from the visit.
5. Public partner list. Any current commercial partner is listed at /transparency/partners with the nature of the relationship.

If you suspect a commercial-influence violation, please report it to editorial@wellchina.top.

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Reviewers and editors

Editorial team: in-house editors are responsible for Tier A content production, sourcing, and pre-review gating. Editors do not sign off on Tier B medical narrative content; that requires an external licensed reviewer per § Medical review process.

Medical reviewers: each reviewer is listed by full name, board certification, primary licensing body, registration number (where the licensing body permits public display), and primary clinical affiliation, with an individual /reviewers/[slug] profile page.

Editorial tools: editorial tools may include AI-assisted drafting, citation discovery, and translation of source quotations from Chinese-language regulations. No AI output is published as a primary medical claim, and no Tier B content is published without human reviewer sign-off, regardless of the tools used to draft it.

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Compliance and jurisdiction

Audience: WellChina serves foreign patients considering medical care in China. The platform is not directed at residents of mainland China.

Jurisdictional baseline:

• United States — WellChina follows FTC Health Products Compliance Guidance for any health-claim text and FTC .com Disclosures for advertising disclosures. FTC Endorsement Guides apply to any user-review surfaces.
• European Union / EEA — Privacy notice is GDPR-compliant in all supported languages. Full Privacy Policy at /privacy. Cookie consent operates on a strict opt-in basis. WellChina does not currently fall under EU MDR (the platform is not a medical device or service) but monitors MDR scope for future feature decisions.
• South Korea — Korean-locale content is treated as Tier B regardless of category, given Korean Ministry of Health & Welfare regulation of foreign medical-tourism advertising. Paid Korean-language advertising is not run.
• Japan — Japanese-locale content follows the Tier B baseline for medical narrative; the platform does not present itself as a medical institution under Japanese Medical Practitioners Law.

For regulators: formal inquiries should be sent to legal@wellchina.top. WellChina commits to substantive reply within 72 hours and to providing original sources for any disputed claim.

Disclaimers: every public page on WellChina carries a footer disclaimer that the site provides general information only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice.

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Version history

• v1.0 · 2026-04-26 · Initial publication. Establishes three-tier review model, corrections SLA, conflict-of-interest baseline, and editorial-tools disclosure.

Editorial contact: editorial@wellchina.top Legal contact: legal@wellchina.top Next substantive review: 2027-04-26 (or sooner if any policy materially changes)

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This policy is published under the same terms as the rest of WellChina: free to read, free to cite, free to challenge. Journalists, researchers, and compliance officers are welcome to request source data on any specific claim — WellChina commits to provide such data within 72 hours.