Methodology

We show the work. Every choice you see surfaced in your report — which inspector picked up your samples, which lab analyzed them, which action level we benchmarked against — is the result of a rule we'll explain on this page.

Inspector selection

The inspector who claims your booking is the first approved inspector in your ZIP whose credentials match the service you booked. "Approved" means:

• One or more current certifications appropriate to the service (CIH, CIEC, CMI, state inspector license, EPA Lead Renovator + Risk Assessor, depending on the service). See credential requirements per service.
• Active state inspector license where the state requires one (e.g. FL, NY, TX for mold).
• Acknowledgment of Canary's Business Associate Agreement (BAA) — they're handling PHI as our business associate, so they sign one before they take their first booking.
• Liability insurance certificate on file.
• Onboarding HIPAA training acknowledgment.
• No active dispute or quality flag from prior bookings.

Why first-to-accept

We considered (and ran A/B simulations on) two alternatives: algorithmic assignment based on rating, and inspector-bidding. Both lose to first-to-accept on speed and on inspector retention. The rating signal kicks in once inspectors have completed enough jobs that rating differentiates them; until then it's noise. Bidding incentivizes inspectors to optimize for booking traffic over quality.

Service catalog

We offer a service when we have:

• An accredited lab partner (AIHA-LAP for IAQ, ELAP for water in most states, or the EPA-recognized equivalent program for the analyte).
• An action level we can defend (EPA, OSHA, AIHA, WHO, or published peer-reviewed clinical thresholds — never an internal level without external grounding).
• A clinical literature base sufficient for a provider in our network to sign an LMN for the right indication.
• At least three inspectors in the launch metro with the credentials to perform the sampling.

We don't add a service just because patients ask for it. We've turned down EMF testing, geopathic stress, and chronic-Lyme-mold biotoxin panels because at least one of those bars wasn't met.

Lab selection + chain-of-custody

Lab partners are vetted on:

• Current accreditation (AIHA-LAP for IAQ, ELAP for drinking water, NLLAP for lead, or state equivalent).
• Public on-time delivery record for our analyte mix.
• Acknowledged BAA with Canary.
• Standardized chain-of-custody form Canary can audit.
• Reanalysis policy (cost, turnaround, dispute path).

The lab's name and accreditation number print on every result. If you ever doubt a result, you can request reanalysis at the lab's published reanalysis fee — typically $35-90 — and we will not charge you a second platform fee.

Action levels

For every analyte we test, we anchor against an external action level. We never report a result as "elevated" without the threshold we're comparing against, cited inline.

Action levels are reviewed once per year by Canary's clinical advisory board against the latest published guidance. The version of the action level table that applied at the time of your report is preserved on your report — you can always tell which threshold we used.

LMN review

Letters of Medical Necessity are signed by independent licensed clinicians — physicians (MD/DO), nurse practitioners (NP), and physician assistants (PA) — depending on state scope. The process:

1. Patient completes the questionnaire (diagnosis, symptoms, duration, medications, optional home description, reason for testing).
2. Questionnaire is queued in the provider portal. Only the assigned provider sees it; the patient's address is redacted; the inspector's identity is not visible.
3. Provider either signs the LMN (using a state-aware template anchored on IRS Publication 502 criteria) or declines with a stated reason.
4. Patient is notified. If declined, the patient may revise + resubmit, pay out-of-pocket, or cancel.
5. Signed LMN is stored encrypted; the patient gets it in their report PDF and can re-download via a signed URL at any time.

NPs in restricted-practice states route through a senior physician co-sign workflow. We don't ask any clinician to sign outside their licensed scope.

Pricing

Patients see a median price at booking, calculated from the approved inspectors who offer the service in the patient's ZIP. The inspector confirms the final price when they accept (usually within $5-10). Canary's platform fee is 15% of the inspector's quote. The fee is disclosed on the receipt + the LMN.

Quality and dispute resolution

After each booking we ask both sides for a one-tap rating and an optional comment. Comments are read by a Canary operations reviewer (not auto-published). Disputes (lab disagreement, sampling concern, scope concern) go to disputes@canary.health and are triaged within 5 business days.

The audit log

Every read or write of your PHI — including reads by you — lands in our audit log. Each row is chain-linked to the previous via a SHA-256 hash, so tampering with any row breaks the chain at that point and beyond. You can pull a six-year accounting of every PHI access on your record any time from Account → Activity log. Read more in the privacy policy →

What we'll never do

• Sell your data, de-identified or otherwise.
• Use PHI for marketing.
• Test for an analyte without an accredited lab and an external action level.
• Allow an inspector to sign an LMN or a provider to sample.
• Run paid acquisition that re-targets pixels on pages mentioning a health condition.