Your match score isn't random, it's built from a handful of specific things on your profile. Here's exactly what moves it, and where a little more detail actually pays off.
For safety-sensitive concerns, suicidality, domestic violence, psychosis, and similar, results only include colleagues rated Specialty or Skilled in that specific area. Everything else on this page affects how well you score. This one affects whether you show up at all. If you're genuinely skilled in one of these areas, rate it that way. Underselling it here doesn't just lower your score, it removes you from those searches entirely.
The single biggest piece of your match score
Specialty counts for meaningfully more than Skilled for whichever concern a search actually asks about. If you're strong at something and have a slot open, don't leave it at Skilled.
Can Work With still earns partial credit. Leaving something unrated earns nothing, the same as marking it Not My Thing.
These are tips for rating what's already true about your practice more completely, not for claiming things that aren't. Only mark a specialty or modality you're actually trained and competent in. Rating something higher than it really is to show up in more searches is a professional ethics issue, and it's the client who pays for the mismatch, not your score.
Availability, payer fit, and capacity
A sparse grid quietly holds this part of your score back, even on the days you're genuinely free. It only takes a minute to fill in.
A missing payer just reads as "not in network" to a referrer, even if you'd have taken that client.
Waitlist scores lower than Accepting, and Not Accepting removes you from results entirely. Update it the moment it changes.
Without one, it shows up as a caution to confirm instead of a clean match.
A close second to clinical fit
The midpoint means "no opinion" and adds nothing. Wherever you actually have a real opinion about how you work, move it.
Certified beats Trained beats Incorporates. Under-claiming your training level costs you the same as under-rating a specialty.
Once three respond, it blends into your style score as a second opinion beyond your own self-rating, fully anonymous, and it's the one thing here you can't just fill in yourself.
Most of this takes ten minutes, once.
Update your profile