When a parent reads a Hartley article at 2am and acts on it, the consequences are real. We treat clinical accuracy not as a courtesy but as the floor we will not publish below.
What gets clinically reviewed
Any article that contains clinical claims goes through medical review. That includes:
- Articles about specific mental health conditions (symptoms, diagnostic criteria, prognosis)
- Articles about treatments (medications, therapies, levels of care)
- Articles about substance use and co-occurring disorders
- Articles describing the experience of being in treatment
- Decision-stage articles where parents are weighing whether to seek clinical help
- Articles about specific clinical modalities (DBT, CBT, EMDR, etc.)
Articles that do not contain clinical claims — about the treatment industry, insurance policy, paying for care, finding educational consultants — are not medically reviewed in the same way, but are still subject to expert review by people with relevant non-clinical expertise (insurance professionals, journalists, attorneys).
What clinical review looks like
The clinical reviewer reads the full article in draft form. They are asked to flag five categories of issue:
Inaccuracies
Statements that are clinically wrong, including subtle misrepresentations of diagnostic criteria, treatment efficacy, or prognosis.
Oversimplifications
Statements that are technically true but mislead readers into oversimplified conclusions about complex clinical realities.
Outdated information
Claims that reflect older clinical thinking that has since been revised or superseded.
Missing context
Information that is incomplete in ways that could lead a reader to act on the article in ways the evidence does not support.
Risk to the reader
Anything that, if a reader acted on it, could cause foreseeable harm to a teen or family.
The reviewer's role is to verify, not to write. They flag issues; the editor and writer revise. If the reviewer's concerns cannot be resolved to their satisfaction, the article does not publish.
How reviewers are credited
Every medically reviewed article shows the reviewer's name, credentials, and the date of review at the top of the article. For example:
Medically reviewed by: [Reviewer name], [credentials, e.g., LCSW, LMFT, PsyD, MD]
Date of review: [Month Year]
Next scheduled review: [Month Year]
Our reviewers
Hartley is actively recruiting its initial clinical reviewer panel. We're looking for licensed practitioners with experience in adolescent mental health, substance use, family treatment, and adolescent psychiatry — including LCSWs, LMFTs, psychologists, and psychiatric providers.
Until those reviewers are in place and have signed off on specific articles, clinical content on Hartley stays in editorial draft. Draft articles are labeled in two places: a visible notice at the top of the article, and a "Pending clinical review" status in the byline.
When you read clinical content on Hartley without those markers, that means a named licensed clinician has signed off on the specific claims in the piece — and the reviewer's name, credentials, and review date appear in the byline.
We will name reviewers publicly on this page as the network is built. Reviewers who prefer to be credited only at the article level (rather than centrally listed) may make that choice — but Hartley will not display review credit on any article without a real, named reviewer having actually reviewed it.
Are you a licensed clinician? See becoming a reviewer below.
How reviewers are compensated
Hartley compensates reviewers with a flat per-article fee. Reviewers do not receive equity, ongoing royalties, or compensation tied to traffic or revenue from the articles they review. This is intentional — we do not want financial incentives that could bias clinical judgment.
Reviewers are expected to disclose their own potential conflicts of interest. A reviewer with current or recent employment at a treatment program will not review articles about that program, its competitors, or modalities the program specializes in.
Becoming a reviewer
If you are a licensed clinician interested in reviewing for Hartley, we'd like to hear from you. Email clinical@thehartley.org with a brief introduction, your areas of clinical specialty, and a link to your professional credentials.
We particularly welcome applications from clinicians with expertise in: adolescent substance use treatment, neurodivergent adolescent care (autism, ADHD, PDA), eating disorders, complex trauma, family therapy, and pediatric psychiatry.
What clinical review is not
Clinical review is not a substitute for medical care. Reviewing an article means a clinician has verified the article is accurate and useful — not that the clinician has reviewed your specific situation. No article on Hartley, however well-reviewed, replaces a real consultation with a real clinician about your specific teen's situation.
Read more on our editorial standards page and our disclosures page.