Complaints and Appeals | Health Nexus: Digital Health and Medical AI

Health Nexus: Digital Health and Medical AI is committed to handling complaints and appeals fairly, independently, confidentially, consistently, and within a reasonable timeframe.

The journal recognises that authors, reviewers, readers, research participants, editors, institutions, and other stakeholders may raise legitimate concerns regarding editorial decisions, peer review, publication ethics, journal procedures, published content, or publisher services.

This policy distinguishes between:

Appeals, which request reconsideration of a specific editorial or publication decision; and
Complaints, which concern the conduct, administration, fairness, timeliness, ethics, or integrity of the journal’s processes.

Submission of an appeal or complaint does not guarantee that a decision will be changed. The journal will assess whether the matter raises a substantive factual, procedural, ethical, methodological, or professional concern.

1. Scope of the Policy

This policy applies to concerns involving:

Initial editorial screening;
Desk-rejection decisions;
External peer review;
Reviewer reports and reviewer conduct;
Editorial decisions after peer review;
Revision and re-review procedures;
Editorial delays or communication failures;
Conflicts of interest and editorial recusal;
Allegations of bias, discrimination, harassment, or retaliation;
Confidentiality and data-protection concerns;
Research-integrity and publication-ethics procedures;
Authorship and contributorship concerns;
Corrections, expressions of concern, retractions, and article removal;
Copyright, licensing, permissions, and intellectual-property concerns;
Article Processing Charges, waivers, invoices, refunds, and payment administration;
Production, typesetting, metadata, website, accessibility, and publication-service issues;
The conduct of editors, editorial board members, guest editors, reviewers, journal staff, or relevant publisher personnel.

2. General Principles

Complaints and appeals will be managed according to the following principles:

Each matter will be considered on its specific facts and available evidence.
The person handling the matter should not have a relevant conflict of interest.
Complainants and appellants will be treated professionally and without retaliation.
Affected parties will ordinarily be given a reasonable opportunity to respond.
Confidential information will be shared only where necessary for assessment or resolution.
The journal will distinguish disagreement with scholarly judgement from evidence of factual, procedural, ethical, or professional error.
Editorial independence will be protected throughout the process.
Article Processing Charges, waivers, discounts, institutional status, nationality, reputation, or commercial relationships will not determine the outcome.
The journal will seek to resolve concerns without unreasonable delay.
Corrective action will be proportionate to the seriousness and effect of the matter.

3. Editorial Appeals

An editorial appeal is a formal request by an author for reconsideration of a decision concerning a submitted or published manuscript.

Appealable decisions may include:

Rejection during initial editorial screening;
Rejection following external peer review;
A decision that a revision has not addressed essential concerns;
Closure or withdrawal of a submission by the journal;
Rejection based on an alleged policy, ethics, reporting, or methodological deficiency;
A decision concerning correction, retraction, authorship, disclosure, or another publication-integrity matter.

An appeal is not a routine additional round of peer review. It is intended to identify a material error or irregularity in the original assessment or decision-making process.

4. Valid Grounds for an Appeal

An appeal may be considered where the author provides specific evidence that:

The editor or reviewer made a material factual error;
The decision relied on a misunderstanding of the manuscript’s methods, data, results, or claims;
Reviewer comments addressed a different manuscript or unrelated material;
A central argument or response submitted by the authors was overlooked;
The journal’s stated editorial or peer-review procedure was not followed;
A relevant conflict of interest was not managed appropriately;
The decision may have been affected by bias, discrimination, or improper external influence;
The editorial decision materially misapplied a journal policy or reporting requirement;
Newly identified evidence demonstrates that the original decision was based on incorrect information;
A serious technical or administrative error affected the review or decision.

The appeal must explain how the alleged error could have affected the editorial outcome.

5. Matters That Do Not Normally Constitute Grounds for Appeal

An appeal will not normally be reconsidered solely because:

The authors disagree with the editor’s scholarly judgement;
The authors believe the manuscript is important or likely to receive citations;
One or more reviewers recommended acceptance but the editor rejected the manuscript;
The authors disagree with the journal’s assessment of priority, novelty, relevance, or fit;
The authors wish to submit a substantially rewritten manuscript;
New experiments, analyses, or data were completed after the original decision;
The authors received a more favourable opinion from another colleague or informal reviewer;
The authors object to reasonable requests for ethical, methodological, statistical, reporting, data, or disclosure information;
The appeal repeats arguments already considered without identifying a material error;
The authors are dissatisfied with rejection but provide no specific evidence of procedural or factual error.

A substantially revised or newly developed study should normally be submitted as a new manuscript rather than presented as an appeal.

6. Deadline for Editorial Appeals

An editorial appeal must normally be submitted within 30 calendar days of the date of the decision letter.

An appeal submitted after this period may be considered only where:

The relevant information could not reasonably have been identified earlier;
A serious ethical, legal, confidentiality, or research-integrity matter is involved;
The journal grants an exception for another documented reason.

Authors should not delay submission of an appeal while conducting extensive new research intended to transform the original manuscript.

7. How to Submit an Appeal

The corresponding author should submit the appeal through the journal’s OJS submission system or the official editorial contact channel displayed on the journal website.

The subject line should contain:

Appeal – Manuscript ID – Short Title

The appeal must include:

The manuscript identification number;
The manuscript title;
The date and type of the decision being appealed;
A concise statement of the grounds for appeal;
A point-by-point explanation of the alleged factual, procedural, methodological, ethical, or editorial error;
Relevant supporting evidence;
Copies or quotations of the specific reviewer or editor comments being challenged;
Confirmation that all authors have been informed of the appeal;
Disclosure of any new conflict of interest relevant to the appeal;
Confirmation of whether the manuscript has been submitted to another journal.

The appeal should be professional, focused, evidence-based, and proportionate. It should not contain personal attacks, speculation about reviewer identity, threats, or defamatory allegations.

8. Manuscripts Submitted Elsewhere during an Appeal

Following rejection, authors are legally and academically free to submit their manuscript to another journal. However, an active appeal may result in reinstatement of the manuscript for editorial consideration.

Authors must therefore notify the journal if the manuscript:

Has been submitted to another journal;
Is under consideration elsewhere;
Has been accepted or published elsewhere;
Has been withdrawn from the appeal process.

The journal may close an appeal where continued reconsideration would create simultaneous submission or duplicate-publication concerns.

9. Initial Assessment of an Appeal

The editorial office will first assess whether the appeal:

Was submitted within the applicable period;
Identifies a specific appealable decision;
Provides substantive grounds and supporting information;
Is sufficiently clear to permit review;
Raises a potential conflict requiring independent handling;
Concerns a matter more appropriately addressed under another journal policy.

An appeal may be declined without full reconsideration where it:

Contains no identifiable grounds beyond disagreement with the decision;
Repeats an appeal already determined;
Concerns a completely rewritten or substantially new manuscript;
Is abusive, threatening, discriminatory, or defamatory;
Contains knowingly false or materially misleading information;
Cannot produce a practical remedy because the manuscript has been published elsewhere.

Where possible, the editorial office will explain why an appeal has not proceeded to full review.

10. Independent Review of an Appeal

An appeal should normally be considered by an editor who was not primarily responsible for the original decision.

Depending on the circumstances, the appeal may be assessed by:

The Editor-in-Chief;
A Deputy Editor or senior editor not involved in the original decision;
An independent member of the Editorial Board;
An external academic or methodological adviser;
A research-integrity, statistical, clinical, technical, ethical, or legal specialist;
An independent representative designated by Panorama Scholarly Group.

The original handling editor may be invited to explain the basis of the decision but should not determine the appeal where their own conduct or judgement is the subject of the appeal.

11. Additional Peer Review

An appeal does not automatically result in additional peer review.

The independent appeal editor may:

Review the manuscript and editorial history directly;
Assess whether the original reviewer comments were relevant and adequately reasoned;
Seek clarification from the original handling editor;
Request clarification from one or more reviewers;
Invite an additional independent reviewer;
Obtain specialist statistical, methodological, technical, clinical, or ethical advice;
Conclude that no further review is necessary.

Original reviewers are not required to participate in the appeal, and their identities will remain confidential under the journal’s double-anonymous peer-review policy.

12. Possible Appeal Outcomes

Following assessment, the journal may:

Uphold the original decision;
Modify the decision;
Reopen the manuscript for editorial consideration;
Request a revised manuscript;
Obtain additional peer review;
Transfer handling to an independent editor;
Correct a procedural or administrative error;
Withdraw and replace an inaccurate decision letter;
Refer an ethical or integrity issue to the appropriate journal procedure.

Successful appeal does not guarantee acceptance. It normally means that the manuscript will receive further appropriate consideration under an independent or corrected process.

13. Number of Appeals

One formal appeal is normally permitted for each editorial decision.

A second appeal will be considered only where:

New and material evidence becomes available;
The appeal process itself contained a serious procedural error;
A conflict of interest affecting the appeal was not disclosed;
A substantial ethical, legal, or research-integrity issue remains unresolved.

Repeated correspondence restating the same arguments will not ordinarily reopen a completed appeal.

14. Complaints

A complaint concerns the administration, conduct, fairness, professionalism, timeliness, ethics, or integrity of a journal or publisher process rather than merely requesting reconsideration of a scholarly decision.

A complaint may be submitted by:

An author or contributor;
A reviewer;
An editor or editorial board member;
A reader;
A research participant or patient;
An institution, funder, ethics committee, registry, or repository;
A copyright or data-rights holder;
A whistleblower or other concerned party.

15. Types of Complaints

Complaints may concern:

Unreasonable or unexplained editorial delay;
Failure to communicate essential information;
Departure from the journal’s stated peer-review procedure;
Reviewer misconduct or unprofessional comments;
Editorial misconduct or abuse of authority;
Bias, discrimination, harassment, bullying, or retaliation;
Undisclosed conflicts of interest;
Breach of manuscript or reviewer confidentiality;
Improper use of unpublished data, ideas, code, images, or methods;
Unauthorised use of artificial-intelligence tools;
Inadequate management of a publication-ethics concern;
Authorship, contributorship, or affiliation irregularities;
Copyright, licensing, privacy, or permission concerns;
Failure to process a correction or post-publication concern appropriately;
Misleading fee information or improper payment requests;
Problems involving waivers, invoices, refunds, or payment administration;
Production, metadata, website, accessibility, or publication-service failures;
Commercial or publisher interference with editorial independence.

16. How to Submit a Complaint

Complaints should be submitted through the journal’s official contact channel or OJS editorial office.

The subject line should contain:

Formal Complaint – Manuscript ID or Article DOI – Short Description

The complaint should include:

The complainant’s name and contact details, unless anonymity is necessary;
The manuscript number, article DOI, invoice number, or other relevant identifier;
A clear description of the concern;
The relevant dates and individuals or roles involved;
Any policy or procedure believed to have been breached;
Copies of relevant correspondence or supporting documentation;
The effect or potential effect of the issue;
The remedy or outcome requested.

The journal may request additional information where the complaint is too general to assess.

17. Anonymous and Confidential Complaints

The journal may consider anonymous or pseudonymous complaints where they contain sufficiently specific, credible, and verifiable information.

Anonymous status may limit the journal’s ability to:

Request clarification;
Verify the evidence;
Provide detailed updates;
Reach a definitive conclusion.

A complainant requesting confidentiality should explain the reason. The journal will seek to protect the complainant’s identity but cannot guarantee complete anonymity where disclosure is:

Required by law;
Necessary for fair assessment;
Essential to prevent serious harm;
Required by an institution, regulator, court, or other competent authority.

18. Complaints Concerning Editorial Delay

Authors may request a status update before submitting a formal complaint.

A delay complaint should identify:

The manuscript number;
The date of submission or revision;
The current status shown in OJS;
Previous requests for information;
The period during which no substantive update was provided.

Reviewer availability, specialist assessment, ethics investigation, statistical review, or author-related delay may extend normal timelines. The journal should explain a material delay where reasonably possible and permit withdrawal where continued consideration is no longer acceptable to the authors.

19. Complaints Concerning Reviewer Conduct

A complaint concerning a reviewer may involve:

Irrelevant or apparently misdirected comments;
Discriminatory, insulting, hostile, or personally directed language;
Coercive or excessive citation requests;
Undisclosed conflicts of interest;
Attempted identification or contact of authors;
Breach of confidentiality;
Misappropriation of unpublished content;
Unauthorised delegation of the review;
Uploading confidential material to an external AI system;
Fabricated, superficial, or otherwise unreliable reviewer reports.

The journal may remove inappropriate comments before transmitting a report to authors. Where reviewer misconduct is substantiated, the journal may disregard the review, obtain a replacement review, remove the reviewer from its database, or take other proportionate action.

20. Complaints Concerning Editors

A complaint concerning a handling editor, guest editor, or editorial board member will be referred to a person who was not directly involved in the matter.

The relevant editor must not control:

The preliminary assessment of the complaint;
The selection of the person reviewing it;
The collection or interpretation of evidence;
The final outcome.

The editor may be invited to provide a response and supporting records.

Where misconduct or a serious policy breach is substantiated, possible action may include:

Correction of the affected editorial process;
Reassignment of the manuscript;
Independent re-review;
Removal from handling responsibility;
Training or formal warning;
Suspension or termination of an editorial appointment;
Notification of an institution or other responsible authority where justified.

21. Complaints Concerning the Editor-in-Chief

A complaint concerning the Editor-in-Chief will not be determined by the Editor-in-Chief.

It will be referred to:

An independent senior editor;
An unconflicted member or panel of the Editorial Board;
An external publication-ethics adviser;
An independent representative designated by Panorama Scholarly Group.

The person or panel reviewing the complaint must have authority to obtain relevant editorial records and recommend or determine appropriate action.

22. Complaints Concerning the Publisher

Complaints alleging inappropriate publisher conduct, commercial interference, misleading fee practices, infringement of editorial independence, or misconduct by publisher personnel should be referred to an independent representative of Panorama Scholarly Group who was not involved in the matter.

Where necessary, independent academic, ethical, financial, technical, or legal advice may be obtained.

Publisher ownership does not permit interference with the Editor-in-Chief’s independent authority over scholarly content and editorial decisions.

23. Complaints Concerning Publication Ethics

A complaint involving possible research or publication misconduct may be managed under the journal’s Publication Ethics, AI and Research Integrity, Conflict of Interest, Data Availability, or Corrections and Retractions policies.

Such concerns may include:

Plagiarism or redundant publication;
Data fabrication or falsification;
Image or multimedia manipulation;
Fabricated references;
Undisclosed or inappropriate AI use;
Authorship manipulation;
Peer-review manipulation;
Ethics approval or informed-consent deficiencies;
Privacy or patient-safety concerns;
Undisclosed financial or commercial interests.

The journal may request underlying data, code, images, model records, ethics documentation, authorship confirmation, funding information, or other evidence.

Where appropriate, the journal may contact institutions, ethics committees, funders, registries, repositories, regulators, or other journals.

24. Financial and APC Complaints

Complaints concerning Article Processing Charges will be managed separately from editorial assessment.

Financial complaints may concern:

An incorrect invoice;
A duplicated payment;
An undisclosed charge;
A waiver or discount decision;
A refund request;
A payment-provider or bank-transfer issue;
Suspected fraudulent payment instructions;
Failure to apply the APC shown at the date of submission.

Financial personnel must not alter or influence peer-review reports, acceptance decisions, rejection decisions, or research-integrity outcomes.

Disagreement with a properly applied and previously disclosed APC does not ordinarily establish editorial misconduct, but the journal will correct administrative or invoicing errors.

25. Preliminary Assessment of a Complaint

The journal will assess whether the complaint:

Falls within the journal’s responsibility;
Contains sufficient information for investigation;
Raises an immediate safety, legal, privacy, or integrity concern;
Requires independent handling;
Should be referred to another journal policy or external authority;
Has already been considered and resolved.

The journal may close a complaint where:

It is unsupported and too vague to investigate;
The matter falls entirely outside the journal’s authority;
It repeats a previously resolved complaint without new evidence;
It is knowingly false, malicious, harassing, or abusive;
The requested remedy would require the journal to breach law, confidentiality, reviewer anonymity, or editorial independence.

26. Investigation and Evidence

Depending on the nature of the matter, the journal may review:

Submission and decision records;
Reviewer invitations and reports;
Editorial correspondence;
Revision histories and author responses;
Conflict-of-interest declarations;
OJS workflow and audit records;
Data, code, figures, images, and supplementary materials;
Payment, invoice, or waiver records;
Applicable policies in effect at the relevant time;
Responses from authors, reviewers, editors, staff, or institutions.

The journal will not normally disclose reviewer identities without the reviewers’ explicit permission, except where disclosure is required by law or necessary under a competent institutional or regulatory process.

27. Possible Complaint Outcomes

Following assessment, the journal may:

Determine that the complaint is not substantiated;
Provide an explanation or clarification;
Apologise for an identified administrative or procedural failure;
Correct an editorial, production, metadata, invoice, or website error;
Reassign a manuscript to an independent editor;
Obtain new or additional peer review;
Disregard an inappropriate reviewer report;
Require recusal of an editor or reviewer;
Provide training, guidance, warning, suspension, or removal from a journal role;
Issue a refund or corrected invoice where appropriate;
Publish a correction, expression of concern, retraction, or other notice;
Refer a matter to an institution, ethics committee, regulator, funder, or other competent authority;
Amend a policy or internal procedure to prevent recurrence.

The complainant will ordinarily receive a summary of the outcome. Confidential personnel, reviewer, legal, or institutional information may be withheld where disclosure would be inappropriate.

28. Response Timeframes

The journal aims to:

Acknowledge a formal complaint or appeal within approximately five working days;
Complete an initial assessment within approximately ten working days;
Provide a substantive outcome, where practicable, within approximately 30 working days.

These are service targets rather than guarantees. Complex matters may require additional time because of:

External expert review;
Institutional investigation;
Legal, regulatory, ethical, or privacy issues;
Difficulty obtaining relevant records or responses;
Multiple manuscripts, authors, institutions, or jurisdictions;
Serious data, image, AI, or research-integrity analysis.

Where resolution is delayed materially, the journal should provide periodic updates where confidentiality and procedural fairness permit.

29. Confidentiality

Complaints and appeals will be handled as confidentially as reasonably possible.

Information may be shared with:

The person or panel reviewing the matter;
Affected authors, reviewers, editors, or staff;
Independent academic, methodological, ethical, technical, or legal advisers;
Institutions, ethics committees, funders, registries, repositories, or regulators where necessary;
Other parties where disclosure is required by law or essential to prevent serious harm.

Complete confidentiality cannot be guaranteed where a fair investigation requires disclosure of relevant allegations or evidence.

30. Non-Retaliation

The journal prohibits retaliation against an individual who raises a concern honestly and in good faith.

Good-faith complainants, authors, reviewers, editors, research participants, and whistleblowers must not be disadvantaged solely because they:

Submitted an appeal;
Reported an error;
Raised an ethical concern;
Questioned an editorial or publisher process;
Participated in an investigation.

Non-retaliation does not protect knowingly false, malicious, abusive, threatening, harassing, or defamatory conduct.

31. Professional Conduct

All parties are expected to communicate professionally.

The journal may restrict, suspend, or terminate correspondence containing:

Threats or intimidation;
Discriminatory or hateful language;
Repeated personal abuse;
Defamatory accusations unsupported by evidence;
Mass or repetitive correspondence intended to harass staff;
Attempts to reveal or pressure anonymous reviewers;
Offers of payment, inducements, or improper influence.

Where a legitimate concern is contained within inappropriate communication, the journal should seek to separate and assess the substantive issue while managing the abusive conduct appropriately.

32. Records

The journal will retain relevant records of complaints, appeals, responses, decisions, and corrective action in accordance with applicable legal, editorial, privacy, and records-management requirements.

Records may be used to:

Document the basis of a decision;
Respond to later questions;
Identify recurring procedural problems;
Support quality assurance and editorial training;
Cooperate with legitimate institutional or regulatory inquiries.

Personal information will not be retained longer than reasonably necessary for these purposes.

33. External Referral

After the journal’s internal procedure has been completed, a matter may be referred to an appropriate external body where:

The issue falls within that body’s authority;
A legal, regulatory, institutional, professional, ethical, or data-protection concern remains;
The journal lacks authority to conduct the necessary investigation;
Independent institutional findings are required.

Depending on the matter, an appropriate external body may include:

A research institution or employer;
An institutional research-integrity office;
An ethics committee or institutional review board;
A clinical-trial registry;
A research funder;
A data-protection or privacy authority;
A professional or regulatory body;
A copyright or legal authority;
Another competent publisher or journal.

External referral does not automatically suspend corrective action necessary to protect patients, participants, readers, or the scholarly record.

34. Finality of the Internal Process

Once an appeal or complaint has been reviewed independently and a reasoned final response has been issued, the journal’s internal process is normally complete.

Further internal reconsideration will occur only where:

Material new evidence is provided;
A serious conflict of interest is identified;
The previous review contained a substantial procedural error;
A competent external body issues findings materially affecting the matter.

The journal is not required to continue indefinite correspondence after a matter has been assessed and concluded fairly.

35. Relationship to Other Policies

This policy should be read together with the journal’s:

Peer Review Policy;
Publication Ethics;
Conflict of Interest Policy;
AI and Research Integrity Policy;
Data Availability Policy;
Corrections and Retractions;
Copyright and Licensing;
APC and Waiver Policy.

Where a complaint or appeal involves several policies, the journal may coordinate the procedures or determine which policy provides the principal framework.

36. External Standards

The journal’s procedures are informed by recognised principles concerning editorial independence, peer review, publication ethics, transparency, complaints, and appeals.

37. Policy Review

This policy may be revised to reflect developments in publication ethics, editorial practice, peer review, artificial intelligence, privacy, legal requirements, open-access standards, and publisher governance.

The version of the policy in effect when the complaint or appeal is submitted will normally govern the procedure, although urgent ethical, legal, privacy, or safety requirements may require application of updated standards.