Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By creating an account or using Resident Insider, you agree to these Terms of Service. If you do not agree, do not use the platform.

2. Eligibility

To use Resident Insider, you must be:

• A currently enrolled medical, osteopathic, or podiatric medical student, or
• An international medical graduate pursuing US residency, or
• A current resident with a valid NPI number

You must be at least 18 years of age.

3. Account Verification

All users must verify their email address. Residents must additionally verify their NPI number through the NPPES registry and complete government-issued photo ID verification through Stripe Identity. At signup, residents affirm that they are currently enrolled in the program they claim to represent and will share their authentic perspective — their own personal opinions and experience, not confidential or proprietary program information, and not as a representative of, or on behalf of, their program or institution. Providing false verification information, or misrepresenting the program at which you are training, will result in immediate account termination.

4. Anonymous Messaging

All messages between students and residents are anonymous. You agree not to:

• Attempt to identify or reveal the identity of other users
• Share personally identifying information in messages
• Use messages to harass, threaten, or defame others
• Share message content outside the platform without consent

5. Pricing & Payments

Students pay $50 per standard message (72-hour response window) or $75 per priority message (24-hour response window). Residents receive $25 per standard message and $38 per priority message. If a student’s payment is later reversed, the resident’s payout for that question is reversed with it. All prices are in USD.

6. Refund Policy

A student receives a full refund if the resident does not respond within the designated time window (72 hours for standard, 24 hours for priority), declines the question, deletes their account before answering, or is removed from the platform by Resident Insider before answering. A question that is removed for violating these Terms is also refunded. Once a resident delivers a substantive answer that meets the response requirements in Section 7, Resident Insider does not refund the question. A student’s bank can still reverse a payment as a chargeback, which is outside our control; when that happens after a resident has been paid, the resident’s payout for that question is reversed and the question is marked accordingly for both parties. Refunds are processed automatically through Stripe.

The one-time $1.50 identity verification fee covers the cost of the government-ID check and is non-refundable once that check has been started — including if you do not finish it, or choose not to complete payout setup afterwards. Two exceptions: if you are charged more than once, the duplicate is refunded in full; and if the last insider slot at your program is taken while you are verifying, your fee is refunded — if a slot later opens and you verify again, the $1.50 is charged again.

7. Response Requirements

Residents who accept a message must provide a response of at least 250 characters. Responses must be relevant to the question asked and provide genuine advice. Residents may decline any message; the student is refunded in full and the resident’s rating is unaffected. Declined messages are reflected in the resident’s public response rate.

8. Outside Employment & Program Policies

Resident Insider does not involve clinical work or patient care. However, some residency programs may have policies regarding outside employment, moonlighting, or paid activities. It is the sole responsibility of each resident user to review and comply with their program's policies before participating on this platform. Resident Insider is not responsible for any consequences resulting from a user's failure to comply with their program's policies.

9. Message Limits

Questions must be between 10 and 500 characters. Residents may have a maximum of 3 pending messages at any time.

10. Rating System

Students may rate resident responses on a scale of 1 to 5 stars. Ratings are anonymous and visible to the resident. Ratings help future students make informed decisions.

Ratings must be submitted within 7 days of the answer being delivered. After 7 days the rating window closes and the response can no longer be rated. The limit is enforced by the platform, and the student’s dashboard shows a countdown of the days remaining on each unrated answer.

Residents are notified by email each time they receive a new rating. If a resident’s overall rating falls to 4.0 or below after at least 8 ratings, the resident will receive a warning email. If the overall rating falls to 3.5 or below, the account will be flagged for manual admin review; the flag itself does not take the resident’s listing down, and no removal occurs unless and until an admin reviews the account and determines that deactivation is warranted. Resident Insider does not auto-deactivate accounts based on ratings alone.

Deactivated residents may appeal the decision by contacting support@myresidentinsider.com. All appeals are reviewed manually. Resident Insider reserves the right to reverse deactivations if ratings appear to have been coordinated in bad faith or otherwise submitted in violation of these Terms.

11. Prohibited Content

You may not use Resident Insider to:

• Share HIPAA-protected patient information
• Provide specific medical advice to patients
• Post discriminatory, offensive, or illegal content
• Solicit or share exam questions or proprietary materials
• Promote commercial products or services

12. Intellectual Property

All content on Resident Insider, including the logo, design, and brand, is owned by Resident Insider LLC. User-generated messages remain the property of their authors.

13. Disclaimer

Resident Insider is an informational platform. Advice shared by residents reflects personal experience and opinion, not official program positions. Resident Insider is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any medical school, residency program, accrediting body, or government agency, nor with the National Resident Matching Program (NRMP), the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) or ERAS, National Matching Services (CASPR), or any other residency matching or application service. Using Resident Insider has no connection to and no effect on the residency matching process: it does not touch the NRMP Match or any other matching algorithm, plays no part in your rank order list, does not interact with your ERAS or other residency application, and is never visible to residency programs. Use all information at your own discretion.

Resident Insider’s content — including the career guides, the Resident Insider Weekly newsletter, and discussion in the Lounge — is general education, not professional financial, tax, legal, or medical advice. For any decision specific to your situation, consult a qualified professional.

Externship Ratings are structured, anonymous letter-grade ratings of residency programs submitted by verified DPM students who externed at them. They reflect the individual student’s own subjective first impressions from a short (typically one-month) externship — they are the opinions of the rating student, not of Resident Insider. Resident Insider does not author, endorse, verify, or guarantee the accuracy of any rating; the pooled averages shown are an aggregation of users’ subjective opinions, not a statement of fact about, or Resident Insider’s assessment of, any program. Resident Insider is not affiliated with any residency program and is not responsible or liable for user-submitted ratings, which are provided for informational purposes only. Conduct your own independent evaluation of any program.

Find Your Fellowship presents an informational directory of podiatric fellowships compiled from publicly available ACFAS, CPME, and AENS listings. Resident Insider is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any of those organizations or any listed fellowship, and does not warrant the accuracy, completeness, or current availability of any program information. Confirm all details directly with the program before relying on them or applying.

14. Contract Decoder

The Contract Decoder is an educational tool that reads an employment contract you upload and explains its terms in plain English, including how they compare to terms commonly seen in physician employment contracts. It is not legal advice, it is not a substitute for review by a licensed attorney, and using it does not create an attorney-client relationship. It does not tell you whether to sign, and it does not determine whether any term is legal, valid, or enforceable in your state. Resident Insider does not guarantee that any analysis is accurate, complete, or applicable to your situation, and you should have a licensed attorney in your state review your contract before you sign. You use the Contract Decoder at your own discretion, and the Limitation of Liability below applies.

Verified residents receive one free decode; additional decodes are $50 each, charged through Stripe at the time of purchase. If a decode fails, or the document you upload is not a physician employment contract, that attempt is not counted — your decode is returned to your account automatically, and credits do not expire. On the rare occasion that return does not go through, we are alerted and will restore it; if you believe a decode was consumed in error, email support@myresidentinsider.com and we will put it back. A single $50 charge therefore entitles you to one completed decode, with failed or invalid attempts not counted against it. Decode purchases are final and non-refundable.

15. Limitation of Liability

Resident Insider is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. We are not liable for decisions made based on information received through the platform, including but not limited to residency ranking decisions.

16. Account Termination

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms. Users may delete their account at any time from their dashboard, or by contacting support@myresidentinsider.com. A deletion is held, not refused, while a question payment on the account is still being processed, so the payment is not lost. That normally clears within a few minutes; if a deletion stays held, email support@myresidentinsider.com and we will clear it. A resident’s deletion is likewise held while we still owe them earnings we have not managed to send — deleting the account the payment is heading to would make that money unrecoverable. The amount is shown at the time; payouts in transit clear on their own, and a stuck one is settled directly with the resident, after which the deletion completes. A deletion may also be held, and our team notified, when several question payments on the account cannot be confirmed as complete; that hold is released by us rather than by retrying. Any unused Contract Decoder credit on a resident account is forfeited on deletion; purchases are final (Section 14).

One deactivation is automatic, and it applies to a single situation: a resident who completes identity verification but never connects a Stripe payout account. If that remains unfinished for 14 days, the program slot is released so another resident at that program can use it. A resident who has been live and whose payouts are paused later is not deactivated automatically — that situation is reviewed individually. We email residents when payouts are paused and again if a slot is released. Reconnecting payouts and contacting support restores the listing if a slot at that program is still open; if it has been filled, the resident may join the waitlist.

17. The Lounge

The Lounge is a private discussion space available to verified MD/DO and DPM residents (kept in separate audience-segregated Lounges). The conduct rules in these Terms — including Section 11 (Prohibited Content) and the requirements not to harass, threaten, or attempt to identify other users — apply to all activity in the Lounge. By participating in the Lounge, you also agree to its House Rules.

Resident Insider may review a Lounge message that a member reports, and may remove content or suspend Lounge access for conduct that violates these Terms or the House Rules.

18. Newsletter (Resident Insider Weekly)

The Resident Insider Weekly newsletter is a free, opt-in editorial service separate from your platform account. Subscription requires affirmative consent (a checkbox at signup or on the homepage signup form) followed by clicking the confirmation link in the inbox — we don’t add anyone to the active list without that double opt-in.

Every issue includes an unsubscribe link in the footer. Unsubscribing from the newsletter takes effect immediately and has no effect on your platform account, transactional emails (verification, payouts, refunds, account alerts), or any other service. We may discontinue the newsletter at any time; doing so will not affect your platform account.

19. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Wyoming, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or your use of Resident Insider will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in the State of Wyoming, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there.

20. Changes to Terms

We may update these Terms of Service at any time. Material changes are posted here with an updated date at the top of this page. Continued use of the platform constitutes acceptance of updated terms.

Contact

Questions about these terms? Email us at support@myresidentinsider.com