1. Clinical Keyword Basics

Every clinical keyword on a provider profile carries four independent settings: Enabled, Searchable, Promoted, and Clinical Interest. 

Clinical Keywords table on a provider's profile, showing the Enabled, Searchable, Promoted, and Clinical Interest columns

Enabled vs. Searchable

Turning a keyword off (not enabled) disables it entirely. Turning it on (enabled) automatically turns Searchable on as well. From there, Searchable can be turned off independently while Enabled stays on — this still allows Searchable, Promoted, or Clinical Interest to be set on that term without fully re-enabling it later. This is mainly a convenience for keeping a keyword "on deck" without it appearing in search.

Enabled applies to any keyword on a provider's profile, including ones added manually that are not part of the provider's assigned template — it is not the same as "this keyword is on the template."

Promoted

Promoting a keyword raises search ranking for the provider (or, at the template level, for every provider on that template) when patients search that term. There is no fixed formula for choosing which provider to promote for a shared term — the general guidance is to promote the provider whose focus area most closely matches the term, or one who is actively trying to fill their panel with that type of patient or procedure.

Clinical Interest

Clinical Interest displays a keyword on the provider's profile, in the About section, as a personal area of interest. It is a display feature, not a ranking one — Clinical Interest keywords are searchable, and they display in alphabetical order, but Clinical Interest by itself does not affect search ranking. To also rank higher in search for that term, the keyword needs to be separately marked Promoted.

On the profile, Clinical Interest terms show as a single combined, untitled list — there is no separate labeling of which terms are conditions versus procedures.

Best practice: Keep Clinical Interest to 5 terms or fewer (conditions and procedures mixed however makes sense), to keep the profile easy to read. More can technically be added, but 5 is the recommended cap.

2. Template Management

2.1 Creating & Editing Templates

New templates can be created from a Kyruus Standard Template, from a blank template, or by uploading keywords via CSV/spreadsheet.

Creating a new clinical keyword template, starting from a Kyruus Standard Template or uploading keywords via CSV

Templates can also now be exported to a spreadsheet, edited, and re-uploaded to update the existing template directly — previously, edits made on an exported spreadsheet still had to be re-entered manually. This makes it much easier to involve stakeholders (for example, medical directors) who review keyword lists but don't log into the platform directly.

Caveat: Every keyword on an uploaded spreadsheet must exactly match a keyword already in the clinical library, or the upload will error. When building a new template from scratch, start from a Kyruus Standard Template or an existing curated template, export it, edit the spreadsheet, and re-upload — rather than typing a keyword list from scratch.

2.2 Template-Level Promote & Clinical Interest

Promote and Clinical Interest can be set at the template level, not just on individual providers. Promoting a keyword at the template level raises ranking for every provider on that template — useful when a keyword could reasonably route to more than one specialty (for example, a symptom that both primary care and a specialty like dermatology could treat), so the organization can decide which group should surface higher.

Clinical Interest at the template level is best used for bulk-applying the same interest keyword to a group of providers at once (for example, using the template plus a provider bulk-edit merge to set the same Clinical Interest across 10–20 providers) rather than for promoting an entire specialty's Clinical Interest broadly.

2.3 Template Subscriptions

A provider can be subscribed to a template so that future template changes flow down automatically, instead of requiring manual updates to every provider.

Subscribed Providers view for a template, where providers are subscribed or unsubscribed

• While subscribed, no provider-level keyword edits are possible at all — not even to a keyword that came from a different, non-subscribed template also applied to that provider.
• A provider can only be subscribed to one template at a time, since the same keyword can exist in multiple templates and the system needs a single source of truth for it.
• To edit a keyword that only lives in a non-subscribed template: unsubscribe, make the edit manually, then resubscribe.
• On resubscribing, any keyword that is also in the subscribed template reverts to whatever the template says, overwriting manual edits made in the meantime. Keywords not in that template keep whatever setting was left.

Best practice: When a provider has multiple templates applied, subscribe to the one that gets edited most often — typically the broader general-specialty template rather than a narrow subspecialty one (for example, cardiology rather than electrophysiology, or family medicine rather than sports medicine).

3. Provider-Level Keyword Management

3.1 Import, Export & Bulk Edits

Individual providers' keyword lists can be exported to a spreadsheet, and — for providers who are not subscribed to a template — imported back in after edits. This also gives providers a way to review their own keyword list before changes are made.

Within a provider's Clinical tab, keywords can be bulk-selected (all or individually) and then enabled/disabled, or bulk-updated for Searchable, Promoted, or Clinical Interest, without editing each row separately.

3.2 Removing Keywords

There is no direct delete button for a single keyword on a provider's profile. Disabling a keyword, or making it non-searchable, removes it from search results but does not purge it from the profile.

To fully clear a provider's keywords: create or reuse a blank template with zero keywords, then apply it via Provider Bulk Edits using the Replace All ("full replace") function. This wipes everything out, after which the correct template can be layered back on. This is also a useful "clean slate" approach when it isn't clear what's currently on a provider's profile.

3.3 Clinical Template History

A provider's Clinical Template History shows every template action ever applied to that profile, so the full history of changes can be traced over time.

• Full Replace clears out whatever keywords were previously on the profile and replaces them entirely with the new template or list.
• Merge adds a template's keywords into the profile without removing anything already there.

Best practice: Read the history starting from the most recent Full Replace forward — everything before that point is no longer active on the profile. Entries after it show what has been merged in since.

4. Specialty Best Practices

4.1 Match the Specialty Label to Actual Practice

The specialty label on a profile should reflect exactly how a provider practices day to day — not everything they are credentialed in. A provider credentialed in both internal medicine and pediatrics, but who only practices pediatrics, should have pediatrics as the searchable specialty, not internal medicine. Credentials can still be shown elsewhere on the profile (for example, in the education section) without being set as a searchable specialty.

This also determines which clinical keyword template gets applied. A provider who only does shoulder and elbow work but is listed under general orthopedic surgery would end up with both the orthopedic surgery and the shoulder-and-elbow templates, and could pick up general orthopedic keywords that don't actually apply to their practice. List the specific practicing specialty so only the right template gets applied.

4.2 Primary Care Specialties

A standalone Primary Care specialty exists because many patients don't recognize labels like family medicine or internal medicine as primary care. Best practice is to not rely on Primary Care alone — also list the actual practicing specialty (family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, geriatric medicine, adolescent medicine, etc.) as an additional specialty, since that is what determines the correct keyword template (age range, scope, and so on). Even without an additional specialty listed, make sure the template matching how the provider actually practices is applied.

4.3 Specialty Order & Search Ranking

Specialty carries no search weighting of its own. The order specialties display in is generally just whatever order they were ingested in during setup; organizations can manually reorder the display, but reordering only changes what patients see — it does not change search ranking. Search ranking for a particular condition or procedure is controlled through Promote on the keyword itself, not through specialty order or a "primary specialty" designation.

5. Governance & Clinical Library Management

5.1 Reviewing Template Governance

Recommended cadence for reviewing governance guidelines after templates are built is once a year, or every two years at minimum if resourcing is tight for organizations with many templates. Separately, keep adding keywords as new treatments or procedures emerge — the clinical keyword library itself is updated weekly, so it's worth checking periodically for anything new to add to templates.

5.2 Requesting New Keywords or Specialties

New keywords and specialties are requested via a support ticket.

• Typical turnaround is about two weeks, often faster (around one week) for small asks such as two or three keywords or one to two specialties.
• Larger requests (for example, around 300 keywords) take longer, though these are rare.
• New specialties must fit the NUCC (National Uniform Claims Committee) taxonomy or have an existing fellowship, with exceptions for emerging fields of medicine.
• New keywords must be a condition, symptom, treatment, or procedure. Generic medications are generally not added, though exceptions are made for high-demand trends (ex: GLP-1 medications).

5.3 Updating Existing Terms

When clinical terminology changes (for example, a condition being renamed), the library is updated to the new term, and the original term is kept as a synonym — since patients searching often use the term they're already familiar with rather than the new official one.

5.4 Explaining the Library to Providers

Keywords added to a provider's profile come from a shared clinical library amongst all Health Systems within our network, not custom entries created for that provider. When explaining this to providers, it can help to frame the library as a curated, centrally maintained set of standard terms rather than something built ad hoc per profile.

6. Reporting & Auditing

6.1 Clinical Configuration Dashboard

The Clinical Configuration Dashboard (in Analytics) surfaces providers missing a specialty, and — among schedulable providers — those missing clinical keywords entirely, with links into detail reports for follow-up.

Clinical Configuration Dashboard: Providers without Specialty, with breakdowns by number of specialties and top specialties by provider count

Clinical Configuration Dashboard: Providers without Clinical Keywords (schedulable providers only), with a link into Detail Reports

7. Roles & Ownership

Ownership of clinical configuration varies by organization — there is no single standard across clients. Depending on the organization, template creation, provider assignment, and keyword promotion/Clinical Interest management may sit with marketing, a practice manager for a specific specialty area, or be handled through IT tickets and requests.

Tip: Whatever the ownership model, it's worth documenting who can create templates, who can assign them to providers, and who approves promotion/Clinical Interest changes, since this tends to be the first point of confusion when responsibilities are split across teams.