Questions, answered.

It means the practice is privately owned by the dentist or veterinarian who actually practices there: no corporate chain, no private equity group, no holding company behind a hometown name. We verify it with state ownership records and a Legal Independence Agreement, and we re-check it every year.

Yes, searching the directory is free, always. Practices pay an annual certification fee to cover verification and the marketing program, but they cannot pay for placement, ranking, or a better listing. Every practice passes the same review or isn't listed.

No, and we’re careful about this. Certification verifies ownership and independence, not clinical outcomes. What it tells you is who your doctor answers to: you, rather than a production target set by a distant office. Licensing and clinical standards remain the job of state boards.

When practices are acquired by corporate chains, profit targets often take priority over personalized care. That can mean higher costs, shorter appointments, revolving-door associates, and treatment plans shaped by quotas. Independent doctors make those decisions themselves, and stake their name on them.

Yes. Dental listings cover general dentists, orthodontists, pediatric dentists, oral surgeons, endodontists, periodontists, and prosthodontists. Orthodontics is part of the dental directory; filter by specialty to find one near you.

That’s exactly what the annual re-certification is for. We re-pull state corporate filings every year and monitor for ownership changes in between. If a certified practice sells to a corporate group, the listing and the seal come down within fourteen days.

Insurance participation varies by practice, check the practice profile and call the office. Independent practices often have more flexibility on payment plans, since those decisions are made in-house rather than by a corporate billing department.

Yes, where independent ones exist, and that's a real caveat. A majority of emergency and specialty veterinary hospitals are now corporate-owned, which makes the independent ones worth finding before you need them urgently. Filter by "Emergency / Critical Care" in the veterinary directory.

Yes. Veterinary listings include the animals each clinic sees: dogs, cats, horses, cattle, birds, reptiles, small mammals and more. Use the "Animals seen" filter on the directory.

Search the clinic's name on your state's business registry and look at the new entity's registered agent and officers. Or take the shortcut: every clinic in our directory has already had that research done, by a person, with documents.

Two things: request a practice for your area (we prioritize outreach where patients ask), and refer your own doctor or vet if they're independent; most of our best members arrive by word of mouth. We'll email you the moment a practice near you clears review.

Email info@CorpFree.org. If the concern involves ownership, say, you believe a listed practice has been acquired, we flag it for immediate re-review, not at the next anniversary. Removals are published in our public record.

Every listing shows its certification date, and each practice is re-certified annually. The directory also shows what’s coming: specialties marked “coming soon” are areas where we’re actively certifying.