Health care pay and training rules change by state, by metro, by credential and by year. This page explains where our figures come from, how the calculators are tested and what happens when a number turns out to be wrong.
Sources we use
We use primary sources only: BLS OEWS wage estimates and the Occupational Outlook Handbook; O*NET OnLine (U.S. Department of Labor); the certifying bodies (NBSTSA, NHA, AAMA, ASCP Board of Certification, AAPC, AHIMA, NREMT, AAVSB); program accreditors (CAAHEP, ABHES, AVMA CVTEA); state agencies and statutes; and the IRS, Social Security Administration and Federal Student Aid for tax and loan parameters. Salary aggregators, job boards and school marketing pages are never used as sources of fact.
How calculators are checked
The salary, take-home, comparison and payback tools run on fixed rules: BLS percentiles with straight-line steps between them, the 2,080-hour BLS work year, the published 2026 federal tax tables and the standard loan payment formula. Hand-worked cases run as automated tests before any release (for example, a single filer earning the BLS May 2025 national median for medical assistants keeps the take-home amount our tests check line by line after 2026 federal income tax, Social Security and Medicare). The formula sits beside each tool, so you can redo the sum on paper.
What we will not publish
- Affiliate links, paid school listings or lead forms for training programs.
- Salary figures from job boards, staffing ads or anonymous self-reports presented as fact.
- A wage, exam fee, eligibility route, case count or state rule we cannot trace to a BLS table, a certification board, an accreditation standard or a statute. Where a board blocks automated reading of its fee page, we name the board and send you there instead of printing a number.
Updates and corrections
Every page carries the date it last changed. BLS publishes new OEWS wage estimates each spring; the IRS sets tax brackets each fall; certification boards and states change fees and rules through the year. We refresh the data and re-run the tests when they do, and change page dates only when content changes. Spot a wrong wage, an outdated exam fee or a calculator that misbehaves? Send it through the contact page with the source, and we check it against the record and fix the page.