Methodology

About the Data

All data is independently collected from public sources and may contain errors — report a correction. This rating is not medical advice, and ranking positions are not for sale.

What We Measure — and What We Don't

We score publicly verifiable factors: how transparent a clinic is about its team, services, and prices; what public review signals look like; which infrastructure and services are documented; how reachable the clinic is for English-speaking patients; and how visible it is in search and AI assistants.

We do not measure clinical quality. This index is not a medical recommendation, and a high score does not mean a clinic is "the best" or that treatment there is right for you. Always consult a qualified professional about medical decisions.

The Formula

Each clinic is scored in six categories. Within a category, criteria have fixed point values (tables below). A clinic's score in any rating profile is:

profile score = 100 × Σ(category% × weight) / Σ(weights) + red-flag penalty
clamped to 0…100, where category% = earned points / category maximum

Category weights are relative; scores are normalized to a 100-point scale. The default "Overall Transparency & Trust" profile uses the methodology's own category maxima (Транспарентност на информациите 20, Транспарентност на цените 15, Углед и рецензии 20, Медицинска инфраструктура 15, Комуникација и услуга 10, Видливост во AI и пребарувањето 10) as weights.

Unknown data scores 0 points. When we cannot verify a fact, the clinic earns no points for it, and the item is listed on the clinic's page under "Data we could not verify" — explicitly not as a negative finding. Absence of evidence never earns points, and never triggers a red flag by itself.

Review Score Adjustment

Raw star ratings are misleading at low review counts, so the Google rating is adjusted with a Bayesian prior of 4 stars weighted as 25 reviews before mapping to points:

adjusted = (rating × reviews + 4 × 25) / (reviews + 25)

Example: a 5.0 rating from 3 reviews adjusts to 4.11, while a 4.8 from 500 reviews adjusts to 4.76 — volume matters.

Red Flags (Penalties)

Documented problems subtract points. Each flag has a severity set by the evidence; the total penalty is capped at -20 points. Flags require public evidence (cited on the clinic page) — we never apply a flag on suspicion alone. Some flags are auto-derived from verified negatives (e.g. "no prices published" → opaque pricing, low severity).

Rating Profiles

All profiles use the same underlying data — only the category weights, penalty multiplier, and eligibility rules differ. A clinic is excluded from a profile (shown as "not ranked") when the qualifying service is verifiably absent, or when we could not verify the data the profile depends on.

Independence Rules

• This rating is not a medical recommendation. It measures transparency and public signals, not treatment quality or outcomes.
• Ranking positions are not for sale. No clinic can pay to raise its score or position, directly or indirectly.
• Paid audits do not affect positions. We offer clinics an improvement audit; purchasing one (or declining one) has zero effect on scoring. Scores change only when the underlying public data changes.
• The rating updates when data changes. Re-checks, corrections, and methodology updates are logged in the changelog and in each clinic's change history.
• Errors are fixable by anyone. Every clinic page links to a correction form; verified corrections are applied with a public history entry.

Note on AI-visibility checks: quoted queries such as "best dentist Macedonia" are the fixed search phrases we test — they are patients' words, not our claims about any clinic.