Editorial policy: how we check facts, use AI and fix mistakes

Who publishes this guide

FreedInsure LLC publishes FreeHealthInsurance.com. FreedInsure is a private health insurance agency in Shrewsbury, New Jersey. This is not a government site. It is not HealthCare.gov, Medicaid or a state agency. FreeHealthInsurance.com is the name of this guide, not the name of an agency. The guide costs nothing to read.

FreedInsure can make money from this guide. If you enroll in a health plan with FreedInsure's help, the insurance company may pay FreedInsure. Our author, Constantino Lardi, owns FreedInsure. You can see how this site is paid for.

The FTC's Endorsement Guides cover ties like this. If a business tie could change how much you trust a recommendation, and you might not expect it, it must be shown clearly (16 CFR 255.5 (law.cornell.edu ↗)). Clear means hard to miss and easy to understand. Online, you should not be able to avoid it (16 CFR 255.0(f) (law.cornell.edu ↗)). So we name FreedInsure in every FreedInsure link, not only at the bottom of the page. A short note under the author's name on every guide also says he owns FreedInsure.

Rules that keep that interest in check

• Free options come first. Low-cost options come second. Help from FreedInsure comes last.
• Each guide answers your question before any FreedInsure box. The page should still help you if you never click that box.
• A page has one FreedInsure box at most. The box says it comes from FreedInsure and says how FreedInsure may be paid.
• Some pages have no FreedInsure box at all. That includes this page, and guides where buying a plan would not help most readers.
• On Medicaid and CHIP pages, a link to your state's official application comes first. FreedInsure can't enroll you in Medicaid or CHIP.
• We don't name, rank or push insurance companies or plans. We don't promote short-term or other limited plans that are not full health coverage.
• We don't take money to mention or link to any clinic, hospital, drug maker or program.
• We don't copy articles from FreedInsure's website, and we never use FreedInsure's pages as a source. If a guide here ever replaces a FreedInsure article, we write the guide fresh from primary sources.

Where our facts come from

Every rule, deadline and law on this site must trace back to a primary source. So must every number in our tables. A primary source is the law itself, or the group that runs the program. We trust sources in this order:

1. The law. Federal and state laws and the rules that carry them out.
2. The agency in charge. For example, CMS, HealthCare.gov, Medicaid.gov, HRSA, the IRS, the CDC, and each state's Medicaid agency and marketplace.
3. The program's own rules. For example, a hospital's written policy on help with bills, or a drug maker's rules for its help program.
4. Trusted nonprofit and research groups, such as KFF. We may quote one of their numbers in the text, with their name and its date next to it. We may also use them to double-check. We never use them to fill a row in our tables.

Each page lists its sources at the bottom, with the date we checked each one. Many facts also link to their source right where they appear. Each table names its source and the date we checked it.

What we don't use as a source

• FreedInsure's own pages.
• Ads or sales pages from insurance companies.
• A news story on its own. News tells us something changed. Then we confirm it with the primary source.
• Forums, social media posts and online reviews.
• Answers from AI chatbots.

When sources disagree

If two sources don't match, we go with the law or the agency in charge. If we still can't tell what is right, we don't guess. We say what we know, give the date, and send you to the agency to confirm. For example, we don't list an Open Enrollment end date. We send you to HealthCare.gov ↗ or your state's official marketplace (healthcare.gov ↗) to check your deadline.

How we use AI

We use AI writing tools on our pages. They may help us find and sum up sources, plan a page, and write a first draft. We think you should know that.

AI is never the source of a fact. These are our limits:

• Every fact must come from a primary source that a person has opened and read.
• Before a page goes live, Constantino Lardi checks it line by line against its sources. If a claim can't be confirmed, it comes out.
• AI tools don't publish pages. A person decides what goes live.
• We never use AI to make up authors, photos, quotes, reviews or credentials.
• We don't hide text for search engines or AI tools. They get the same page you see.

How a page gets published

1. Plan. We pick one topic and ask if the page would truly help someone. We check that it doesn't repeat another page on this site or on FreedInsure's site.
2. Gather sources. We find the primary source for each fact. We write down the date we opened it.
3. Draft. We write the page in plain English, often with help from an AI tool.
4. Check each line. We hold each number, rule, deadline and law up against its source. Anything we can't confirm gets cut.
5. Run automatic checks. Our publishing software looks for missing sources, old tables and broken links. It flags a "$0" when the same sentence doesn't say who qualifies. It flags "free" next to insurance unless the sentence says who is eligible. It also flags an Open Enrollment end date and other words we don't allow. If a check fails, the site can't be updated until we fix it.
6. Author check. Constantino Lardi reads the page against its sources one more time.
7. Publish and keep a copy. We save a dated copy of every version we publish.

Why save every version? FreedInsure is an insurance agency, so we treat this whole site as FreedInsure marketing. Federal rules say agents and brokers who help people enroll through HealthCare.gov must give correct facts about Marketplace plans and about programs that lower costs, like Medicaid and CHIP. They can't leave out key facts. They must also hand over their marketing when HHS asks for it, including marketing made for them by others (45 CFR 155.220(j) (law.cornell.edu ↗)). A saved copy shows what a page said on any given day.

What the "Last reviewed" date means

Near the top of each page you'll see "Last reviewed" and a date. It shows the last time a person checked the whole page's facts against its sources.

• We change that date only after a real check of the facts.
• We don't change it for a typo fix, a new look or a new link.
• We never change a date just to make a page look newer.

Our data tables also show their own "Verified" date. Each table has a shelf life. It depends on how often its source changes:

• 13 months for sources that change once a year.
• 4 months for sources that change every 3 months.
• 6 weeks for sources that change every week.

If a table goes past its shelf life, our publishing software blocks every site update until we check the table again or take it down. We would rather pull a table than leave old numbers up.

How to check our work

1. Look at the "Last reviewed" date near the top of the page.
2. Tap "Sources" next to it to jump to the list. Each source shows the date we checked it.
3. Open the source and find the rule or number. If the source says something different, trust the source. Rules and dollar limits change.
4. For your own case, such as whether you qualify or when your deadline is, ask the office that decides. That is your state Medicaid agency (medicaid.gov ↗), the HealthCare.gov call center at 1-800-318-2596, or your state's official marketplace (healthcare.gov ↗). We can't decide if you qualify.
5. If our page is wrong, tell us. The steps are below.

When we update pages

Every time we publish

We test our links to other sites. We fix or remove broken ones.

Every 3 months

We re-check program phone numbers and contacts, whether programs are still running, and our list of state agency links.

Each January

HHS puts out new poverty guidelines once a year, usually in January (HHS poverty guidelines (aspe.hhs.gov ↗)). We update the dollar amounts that switch to the new guidelines. Some don't switch right away. For example, premium tax credits for 2027 coverage use the 2026 guidelines. That is because the IRS uses the guidelines in effect when enrollment for the year opens (26 CFR 1.36B-1(h) (law.cornell.edu ↗)). We also re-check state Medicaid and CHIP income rules and state laws on hospital charity care.

Each July

We re-check state charity care laws and state Medicaid dental rules for adults.

Each August

We add the new yearly health center numbers from HRSA.

Each fall, by mid-October

Before Open Enrollment, we re-check every dollar amount, deadline and law on the site.

When a law or rule changes

We update the pages it touches once we can confirm the change from the law or the agency.

How we write

• Plain English. We use short sentences and everyday words. We explain terms like premium, deductible and sliding scale the first time they come up.
• "Free" means free to you. If something is free only for some people, the same sentence says who. When we write "$0", the same sentence says who qualifies and what it depends on. We never call an insurance policy that FreedInsure sells free.
• No fine print. The FTC's guide on the word "free" says conditions should be clear from the start, not tucked in a footnote (16 CFR 251.1(c) (law.cornell.edu ↗)). We put the condition in the same sentence, with no asterisks.
• No pressure. We don't use countdown clocks, scare words or made-up deadlines. When a real deadline matters, we give its source.
• Honest about limits. Rules often differ by state. When they do, we say so and point you to the agency that decides.
• No medical, legal or tax advice. Our guides explain how to find care and pay for it. They don't tell you what care you need.
• No ratings. We don't post testimonials, star ratings or customer reviews.
• No government look. We don't use seals, flags or anything made to look like a government site. We use the names Medicaid, CHIP and Medicare only to talk about those programs.

Who writes and checks our pages

Constantino Lardi writes and checks our English guides. FreedInsure's licensed agent, Constantino Lardi (NPN 20230457), is licensed in 42 jurisdictions. He is an insurance agent, not a doctor, lawyer or tax expert. He also owns FreedInsure, so he stands to gain when FreedInsure helps someone enroll in a plan. You can read more on his author page.

We name only real people as authors. We list only the credentials they truly hold. Right now, no outside doctor, lawyer or other expert checks our pages.

We plan to add guides in Spanish. They will be written in Spanish, not machine-translated. Before one goes live, one of FreedInsure's two Spanish-speaking licensed staff members will check it.

How to report a mistake

Found something wrong? Please tell us. Email admin@freedinsure.com. This inbox belongs to FreedInsure, and FreedInsure's team reads it.

Our contact page has a short email you can copy.

Please don't send medical details, your Social Security number or other private facts. We don't need them to fix a page.

What happens next

1. We check your note against the primary source.
2. If the page is wrong, we fix it. Errors that could cost someone money, coverage or a deadline get fixed first.
3. If the fix changes a fact, number, rule or deadline, we add a short note at the end of the page. It says what changed and when.
4. We change the "Last reviewed" date only if we then re-check the whole page against its sources.
5. We fix small things, like typos and broken links, without a note.
6. If the source doesn't back up the change, we leave the page as it is. We may write back to tell you what we found.

We can't look up, change or speed up any application or case. For help with your own coverage, use the offices listed under "How to check our work" above. The contact page also lists other help lines that cost nothing to call.

Reusing our tables

You may reuse tables that we compiled ourselves under the CC BY 4.0 license (creativecommons.org ↗). You can copy, share and change them, even for business use. Credit FreeHealthInsurance.com, link to the page and to the license, and say if you changed anything. Don't suggest that we endorse you or your use.

Some of our data comes straight from federal agencies such as HRSA and the IRS. Most work made by the U.S. government has no U.S. copyright, so anyone may reuse it (17 U.S.C. 105 (law.cornell.edu ↗)). We still name the agency that made it. We don't copy lists that other groups own, such as the free clinic finder (nafcclinics.org ↗) from the National Association of Free & Charitable Clinics. We link to them instead.