Editorial Policy

Gangnam Meditour is an English-language directory of Korean aesthetic and regenerative medical tourism, operated by HEIM GLOBAL under KHIDI registration A-2026-04-02-06873. International patients are entitled to know how a publisher arrives at the clinics, treatments, and pricing references it puts in front of them. This page documents the editorial standards we follow — how we source clinic data, how we verify physician credentials, how we treat platform claims (Ultherapy PRIME, Thermage FLX, Sofwave), how commercial relationships sit relative to editorial inclusion, and how readers can flag corrections. The policy is reviewed quarterly and revised in public; the date at the foot of each page reflects the last revision relevant to that page.

How clinics enter our index

A clinic enters the Gangnam Meditour index when three conditions are met. First, the clinic must be registered as a Korean medical institution and verifiable through public registry data — typically the Korean Medical Association physician registry, the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) facility records, or the KHIDI international medical-services portal. Second, the clinic's lead physician must hold a valid Korean medical licence; we record the licence number where the clinic publishes it and verify it against the registry. Third, the clinic must offer at least one treatment platform within our scope of coverage — currently stem cell and exosome regenerative work, Ultherapy or Ultherapy PRIME, Thermage FLX, Sofwave, broader MFU/HIFU lifting, or thread lift. Clinics that fail any of these checks are not listed. We do not list clinics on the strength of advertising spend alone; commercial relationships, where they exist, sit downstream of editorial inclusion, not upstream.

How we verify treatment-platform claims

Korean clinics frequently advertise specific device platforms — Ultherapy PRIME, Thermage FLX, Sofwave — and the manufacturers of these platforms publish authorised-provider lists. Where a clinic claims to operate a specific platform, we cross-check that claim against the manufacturer's authorised-provider directory before we publish. For Ultherapy and Ultherapy PRIME this is the Merz Aesthetics provider locator, for Thermage FLX it is Solta Medical, and for Sofwave it is the Sofwave Medical authorised-provider list. Claims we cannot verify against a manufacturer source are either dropped or marked as unverified in the relevant page. We do not accept clinic-supplied photographs of devices as standalone evidence; the manufacturer's published list is the source of truth.

Commercial relationships and editorial independence

Some of the clinics we cover maintain commercial relationships with HEIM GLOBAL — typically referral arrangements where international patients who contact the clinic through a Gangnam Meditour link generate a referral fee. These relationships are disclosed on the [commercial disclosure page](/disclosure/) and on each affected article. Editorial inclusion is independent of commercial relationships in the following specific senses: we do not exclude clinics that decline commercial arrangements; we do not include clinics that fail our editorial standards even if they offer commercial arrangements; and we do not adjust the order or framing of editorial coverage in exchange for commercial consideration. Where commercial outbound links exist, they carry the appropriate `rel` attributes (`sponsored noopener`) so that search engines and readers can distinguish them from purely editorial references.

What we will not publish

We will not publish numerical clinic rankings — no "#1 best clinic in Gangnam" headlines, no five-star scoring on individual practices. The Korean Medical Service Act, in particular Article 56(4), restricts certain forms of comparative advertising, and our editorial line is more conservative than the legal floor. We will not publish before-and-after photographs we cannot trace to a single named clinic with that clinic's documented consent. We will not publish prices the clinic has not itself published — clinic-published price lists are our source for pricing references, not industry rumour. We will not publish testimonials we cannot trace to a real, contactable patient who has consented to use of their words. We will not publish anything we cannot verify against a primary source.

Corrections and reader feedback

Readers who believe a Gangnam Meditour page contains a factual error are invited to write to the editorial team. We aim to respond to factual-error reports within five business days. Where a correction is warranted, we revise the article in place, update the last-revised date at the foot of the page, and publish a brief correction note in the disclosure block. We do not silently rewrite history; major corrections are logged. Where a clinic believes our coverage is unfair, we are happy to receive a right-of-reply submission and will publish a clinic statement alongside the article where the clinic's position is reasonably substantiated. We are operated by HEIM GLOBAL, registered with KHIDI under A-2026-04-02-06873; readers concerned about the conduct of any KHIDI-registered facilitator can also contact KHIDI directly.

Frequently asked questions

Do you accept paid placements?

We accept commercial referral arrangements with clinics that already meet our editorial standards. We do not accept paid placements from clinics that fail those standards, and we do not accept payment for adjusting the framing or order of editorial coverage. All commercial relationships are disclosed on the relevant page and in our central commercial disclosure page.

How often do you update pricing references?

Pricing references are reviewed quarterly against publicly available clinic price lists. Where a clinic publishes a new price list outside that cycle, we update the relevant page on a best-efforts basis. We do not publish prices clinics have not themselves published, and we do not extrapolate prices from one clinic to another.

Why do you avoid 'best clinic' rankings?

Numerical rankings of medical practices are restricted under Article 56(4) of the Korean Medical Service Act, and our editorial line is more conservative than the legal floor. Beyond the legal point, ranking individual physicians on a 1-to-N scale tends to misrepresent how clinical decisions actually get made. We publish editorial shortlists with documented reasons, not numbered rankings.

Can a clinic ask to be removed from your index?

Yes. A clinic that asks to be removed will be removed within five business days of a verified request from the clinic's named representative, and the removal will be respected on subsequent revisions. We do not maintain a removed-clinic list publicly, and we do not retain editorial coverage of clinics that have asked to be delisted.

How do you decide which clinics to feature?

Our featured selections are editorial picks, not paid placements. The criteria are documented per page — typically physician credentials, platform authorisation, multilingual support, transparent pricing, and aftercare structure. Featured selections are revisited quarterly; a clinic can move on or off the featured shortlist as its practice changes.