Data Caveats
The known traps in the underlying registries, why they exist, and how Qope handles each one.
These are real limitations of the upstream data, not bugs in Qope. Each is surfaced in the interface, but they are collected here so you can check a number before defending it.
Comma-joined values cannot be filtered
Several sources put multiple values in one field, separated by commas -- a shortage record tagged with three therapeutic categories, for example. The filtering layer splits filter values on commas, so a value that itself contains a comma can never match.
Effect: a dropdown can offer a value that returns zero rows.
How Qope handles it: where a value is known to be unfilterable, the "Open in full table" button is replaced with a greyed Not filterable in full table chip, and the tooltip explains that filtering would return a different count from the view you are looking at.
Categorical values are uppercased
The intelligence backend returns categorical values in upper case. A comparison against a mixed-case literal such as Yes silently returns nothing.
Effect: if you build a filter URL by hand, match the case the API returns.
providers and provsummary use different specialty vocabularies
The NPPES registry and the Medicare Part D prescriber file describe specialties with different strings -- CHIROPRACTOR in one, CHIROPRACTIC in the other, and so on across many specialties.
Effect: a specialty value carried from one table to the other returns zero rows with no error.
How Qope handles it: every specialty picker loads its options from the dataset it will actually query. Do not hand-edit a specialty value between pages.
Most recall rows carry no openFDA annotation
Roughly 82 percent of FDA enforcement rows have no openFDA annotation block. A name-based filter therefore looks exhaustive but silently misses the large majority of rows.
How Qope handles it: the recall scan combines exact-name filters with a bounded text scan, and folds biosimilar suffixes back to the originator molecule, so a molecule-level recall count is not built on the annotated rows alone.
The FDA shortage list mixes notices with shortages
Records with status TO BE DISCONTINUED are 506C discontinuation notices, not shortages. At the time this was investigated they were the majority of grouped rows.
How Qope handles it: notices are counted and displayed separately everywhere, and are excluded from the Landscape and Manufacturers analyses. Availability detail is present on current rows only.