Ownership, independence, and financial disclosure.

This Ownership, Independence and Financial Disclosure explains the ownership and commercial relationships of HandshakeMD, located at handshakemd.com, and related services operated by shrinkMD Publishing LLC, a Florida limited liability company (“Company,” “we,” “us,” or “our”).

We refer to the website, professional directory, tools, and related services collectively as the “Platform.”

1Ownership

The Platform is owned and operated by shrinkMD Publishing LLC, a Florida limited liability company.

The Company also owns, publishes, and operates other websites, educational resources, and digital properties. HandshakeMD is one property within a broader collection of independently focused sites operated by the Company, described in section 19.

2The Platform is not a medical practice

The Platform is not a medical practice and does not provide medical, psychiatric, psychological, therapeutic, nursing, prescribing, or other healthcare services.

The Company's operation of the Platform is separate from any healthcare practice, clinician, medical group, or professional entity affiliated with the same owner or with other entities in the broader Shrink Network.

Using the Platform does not create a clinician and patient relationship with the Company.

3Affiliated businesses

The owner and affiliates of shrinkMD Publishing LLC may hold ownership interests in healthcare, publishing, educational, technology, and other businesses.

One such affiliation exists today and it is worth naming rather than describing in the abstract. HandshakeMD was built by Shariq Refai, MD, MBA, a board certified psychiatrist, who also founded shrinkMD, an independent multistate telepsychiatry practice. shrinkMD is not listed on HandshakeMD yet. When it is, it will be listed on the same terms as every other practice, with no boost, no priority, and no fee, and its listing will carry an affiliated practice disclosure.

Where an affiliated practice is listed, the disclosure appears on the listing itself, so a reader sees it where it matters rather than only here. Such a listing is subject to the same directory standards, the same confirmation windows, and the same verification rules as every other one, and it gets no boost, no priority, and no fee. Whether that sentence reads as present or future above is generated from the records themselves rather than typed, so it cannot drift out of date.

The existence of an ownership or affiliate relationship does not mean that the affiliated professional or practice receives preferential treatment in referral decisions.

4No paid referral steering

The Platform does not accept payment in exchange for directing a specific patient to a specific healthcare professional. Not as a matter of present intention, as a matter of commitment, stated in the Terms of Use and on the list of things we will never do.

The Company does not pay healthcare professionals for sending patients to the Platform or to another listed professional.

The Company does not compensate professionals based on the number or value of patient referrals made through the Platform.

5No referral fees

The Platform's business model is not based on buying or selling individual patient referrals, and no part of it ever will be.

No healthcare professional listed on the Platform pays a referral fee to the Company because a patient or a referring professional found that listing here. Listings are free.

6No preferential ranking based on referral payments

No professional ranks more highly because they paid the Company anything. Position is not for sale, and there is no mechanism by which it could be, because no paid placement product exists.

Search results are influenced by factors such as:

• geographic relevance;
• specialty;
• filters selected by the user;
• availability;
• completeness of the listing;
• recency of information;
• referral fit;
• technical considerations; and
• other legitimate product design factors.

If the Platform later offers paid placement, sponsorship, advertising, or promoted listings, those placements will be clearly labelled and will not be presented as an independent quality ranking.

7Affiliated professionals and practices

Where a professional or practice has an ownership, family, employment, contractual, or other material financial relationship to the Company, that relationship is disclosed on the listing itself.

The Company does not represent an affiliated clinician or practice as independently selected merely because it appears on the Platform.

8No endorsement based on affiliation

Affiliation with the Company does not mean that a clinician or practice is:

• recommended over another professional;
• clinically superior;
• safer;
• more effective;
• more appropriate for a particular patient; or
• guaranteed to accept a referral.

Users remain responsible for making their own referral and healthcare decisions.

9No ownership based referral requirement

Professionals using the Platform are not required to refer to:

• an affiliated clinician;
• an affiliated practice;
• another Company owned business; or
• any particular listed professional.

The Platform exists to support user choice and professional judgment. Nothing in it nudges a referral toward an affiliated practice, and nothing about a listing changes because of who owns it.

10Separation from clinical businesses

The Company maintains separation between directory and referral platform operations on the one hand and clinical treatment operations on the other. In practice that means separate:

• websites;
• branding;
• professional entities;
• clinical records;
• scheduling systems;
• billing systems;
• privacy notices; and
• patient consent processes.

The Platform holds no clinical records of any kind, has no scheduling system, and takes no payments from patients, which makes this separation structural rather than procedural.

11No use of clinical information for directory steering

The Platform does not receive private patient clinical information from any affiliated healthcare practice, and could not use it for targeting listings, referral suggestions, or marketing if it did.

There is no data channel between the Platform and any clinical entity. The Platform holds no patient records, sets no cookies, and does not receive search terms at all, which is described in the Privacy Policy and enforced by an automated audit.

Information held by an affiliated clinical entity remains subject to the privacy, legal, and professional requirements applicable to that entity.

12Public directory participation

Listings on the Platform may include:

• unaffiliated healthcare professionals;
• unaffiliated practices;
• affiliated professionals;
• affiliated practices; and
• profiles created from lawful public professional information.

Affiliation with the Company is not a prerequisite for being listed, and the overwhelming majority of listings have no relationship to the Company at all.

13Free listings

Professional listings are free. A professional does not need to enter into any financial relationship with the Company to create or maintain an ordinary listing, subject to eligibility and content requirements.

The Company may offer paid services in the future without requiring all listed professionals to buy them, and without changing what a free listing gets.

14Future paid products or services

The Company may later offer lawful paid products or services such as:

• recruiting tools;
• job listings;
• practice management tools;
• enhanced administrative features;
• enterprise services;
• data or software integrations;
• educational resources;
• advertising;
• sponsored content;
• analytics;
• premium software functionality; or
• other business services.

Any paid service will be structured separately from payment for individual patient referrals and will comply with applicable law. None of it exists today.

15Sponsored content

The Platform carries no advertising and no sponsored content today.

If it ever displays either, that content will be clearly identified as such. Sponsored status would not mean that the Company had independently determined that the sponsor provides superior healthcare.

16Ownership does not mean editorial control by affiliates

Affiliated clinicians, practices, and businesses have no right to alter another professional's listing, and no ability to. A listing can be edited by the clinician it describes and by nobody else.

Directory standards are applied consistently across affiliated and unaffiliated listings. The affiliated listing on this Platform is generated by the same code, validated by the same rules, and subject to the same confirmation clocks as every other one.

17Professional listings are not recommendations

The presence of a professional on the Platform is not a recommendation by:

• shrinkMD Publishing LLC;
• HandshakeMD;
• any affiliated healthcare practice;
• any Company owner; or
• another listed professional,

unless a specific statement expressly says otherwise. None does.

18No guarantee of the independence of third parties

The Platform may contain information about professionals or practices that have financial, employment, ownership, referral, or other relationships with one another.

The Company does not guarantee that every relationship between independently listed professionals has been identified or disclosed. We know what clinicians tell us and what public records show.

Users should conduct additional due diligence where a potential conflict of interest matters to their decision.

19Other Shrink Network properties

The Company operates other informational and educational properties that form part of the broader Shrink Network.

Those properties may:

• link to the Platform;
• reference the Platform;
• feature Platform tools;
• cross link related educational resources; or
• share common ownership.

Common ownership does not mean that every property has the same purpose, legal role, or privacy obligations. Each site should be judged by what it actually does, and the policies on this Platform govern this Platform only.

20Links to affiliated websites

The Platform links to websites owned by the Company and its affiliates, including other Shrink Network properties listed in the site footer.

Where a link leads to an affiliated healthcare practice or a commercial service, the relationship is disclosed.

A link is not a recommendation or an endorsement.

21Financial conflicts and search integrity

The Company does not operate undisclosed financial arrangements that would make search results appear neutral while being influenced by payment. There are no such arrangements.

If financial considerations ever affected:

• placement;
• sponsorship;
• visibility;
• recommendations; or
• featured status,

that relationship would be disclosed clearly and at the point where somebody sees the result, not only on this page.

22No guarantee of comprehensive conflict disclosure

This page discloses the material ownership and financial relationships of the Platform itself.

It does not identify every financial relationship, ownership interest, employment arrangement, investment, referral relationship, or conflict involving every listed healthcare professional or practice.

23Changes in ownership or business model

Ownership, affiliates, commercial arrangements, and Platform features may change over time.

Where a material ownership or financial relationship changes in a way that affects users, this disclosure changes with it, and it carries a version string at the top so you can tell when it last did.

24Questions about ownership or financial relationships

Questions about Platform ownership, affiliation, or financial relationships:

shrinkMD Publishing LLC
Operator of HandshakeMD
Email: [email protected]
Northwest Registered Agent LLC, 7901 4th St N Ste 300, St. Petersburg, FL 33702