How we research

The Lounge is built on official sources, and every page shows its work.

Official sources first

For anything about pay, licensing, credentials, regulations or clinical practice, we use primary sources, in this order:

  1. Federal agencies (for example the Bureau of Labor Statistics, CMS, HHS, CDC, OSHA, the Department of Labor, HRSA and the Department of Education)
  2. State agencies and health departments
  3. State licensing boards and the official interstate compacts
  4. Statutes and regulations
  5. Recognized accreditors (for school and program information)

We never use another blog, a staffing website or AI-written articles as the authority for a fact.

Every number shows where it came from

  • Pay comes from BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (currently May 2025).
  • Job growth and openings come from BLS Employment Projections (currently 2025–35).
  • Licensing links go to each state's own board or agency. We check them monthly.

Each page lists its sources, the jurisdiction it applies to, and the date we last checked it.

Three review levels

  • Fact-checked: data, how-to and licensing pages are checked against the official source.
  • Clinical review: pages with real clinical content are reviewed by a named, licensed clinician before they're published.
  • Laws and legal terms: guides that explain laws, such as worker classification, are written only from federal and state government sources and say which places they cover. Our own terms and consent wording are reviewed by counsel before they're used.

No made-up rankings

We don't publish "best" lists unless we explain exactly how they were made. In Explore Careers you sort by the measure that matters to you.

Who runs the Lounge

The SHIFTerz Lounge is run by SHIFTit. SHIFTerz are the nurses, CNAs, dental and allied health professionals who use SHIFTit to find shifts. The Lounge is free and open to everyone, SHIFTer or not, and wherever we mention SHIFTit's own services, we say so.

Not advice

The Lounge is general information, not legal, financial, tax or medical advice. Rules change and vary by state and employer, so always confirm with the official source linked on the page.

Spotted a mistake?

Tell us through the Contact page. We fix errors quickly and update the date on the page.