When you search for providers in Violet's Care Coordination tool, results include more than contact details — they show verified signals of each provider's cultural competence. This article explains what those signals mean so you can make confident, appropriate referrals.
What are Violet Benchmarks?
Violet Benchmarks are verified measures of a clinician's cultural competence in caring for specific communities. Providers earn Benchmarks by completing their Violet profile — sharing their education, training, work experience, identity, and languages — and by completing relevant clinical education. Violet then benchmarks them for each community.
Benchmarks are awarded at three levels, from foundational to advanced:
- Awareness — foundational knowledge and commitment to serving the community.
- Proficiency — demonstrated experience and applied skills caring for the community.
- Excellence — extensive, sustained experience and leadership in caring for the community.
Which communities do Benchmarks cover?
In Care Coordination search you can filter providers by verified competence for these communities:
- BIPOC — Black, Indigenous, People of Color
- LGBQ — Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer
- TGNC — Transgender & Gender Non-Conforming
- Neurodivergent
- Rural
- Veterans
Reading the search results
Each row in the Recommended Providers table includes:
- Name, Organization, and Specialty — the provider's clinical identity.
- On Violet — whether the provider has an active Violet account. Providers on Violet have self-reported profiles and up-to-date benchmarking; providers not on Violet may still appear with inferred data from public and network sources.
- Languages — languages the provider speaks with patients.
- Race & Ethnicity — as self-reported by the provider, when available. Some patients prefer racially or ethnically concordant care; this column helps you honor that preference.
- Communities — the communities for which the provider holds earned Violet Benchmarks (for example, BIPOC, TGNC, LGBTQ+).
What the Status filters mean
In the Filter by specific criteria panel, the Status section lets you narrow results by how connected a provider is to Violet:
- Provider on Violet — the individual provider has an active Violet account, so their profile and Benchmarks come from verified, self-reported data.
- Organization on Violet — the provider works at an organization that partners with Violet, meaning their care team has access to Violet's education and benchmarking.
- Violet Verified Organization — the organization has met Violet's verification criteria for inclusive care, including having a sufficient share of its clinical team benchmarked. This is the strongest organization-level signal of commitment to person-centered care.
Putting it together: choosing a referral
- Start from the patient's clinical need (specialty), language, and location.
- Add the community filter(s) that match the patient's identity — for example, TGNC for a transgender patient seeking gender-affirming care.
- Prefer providers whose Communities column shows an earned Benchmark for that community, and use Violet Verified Organization when the patient would benefit from an inclusive environment beyond a single clinician.
- Copy the shortlist to your clipboard and share it through your normal referral workflow.
Related articles
- Finding inclusive providers for referrals with Care Coordination search
- Getting set up: onboarding and education for care coordination teams