About Skip The Doctor
Skip The Doctor is an independent editorial resource that explains how everyday people can order their own lab tests from the same CLIA-certified labs hospitals use — often for 60–80% less than a clinic visit. We exist to make transparent, plain-English lab-testing information available to anyone.
Who is behind this site
Skip The Doctor is published by the Skip The Doctor team. We are a small editorial team of health writers and researchers — not practicing physicians. We do not provide medical care, and nothing here is a substitute for a licensed clinician. What we do is curate and summarize guidance that already exists from recognized medical authorities, and translate it into guides you can act on.
Our editorial process
- We start from primary sources. Every health claim is attributed to a recognized authority — the Mayo Clinic, the NIH's MedlinePlus, PubMed, and the CDC. Each article links its sources in a “Sources & references” section.
- We cite, we don't diagnose. Our guides describe what a test measures and the typical reference ranges published by those authorities. We never tell you that you have a condition or how to treat one — those are conversations for a licensed clinician.
- We fact-check against the canonical source. Reference ranges, prices, and test descriptions are checked against the primary source before publishing, and our citations point only to stable, authoritative pages — never invented studies or dead links.
- We disclose our funding. Skip The Doctor is reader- supported through affiliate partnerships with the labs we describe (such as HealthLabs). We may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Affiliate relationships never change which tests or facts we report. See our affiliate disclosure.
A note on how our content is produced
We use research-assisted and automated tooling to scale our editorial workflow, but every guide is built on, and cross-checked against, the named medical authorities cited within it. Our goal is a faithful, well-sourced summary — an educational starting point you bring to your own clinician.
Watch us on YouTube
We publish the same research as short explainers and long-form breakdowns on our YouTube channel, @SkipTheDoctor. Each video lists its primary medical sources in the description and pinned comment.