A template is not a document. It is a set of instructions Vero combines with everything else it knows about you and the encounter to produce a finished note.
This article is the map of that system. Once you understand it, you can predict exactly what Vero will produce — and design templates that stay consistent across every encounter, every specialty, and every member of your clinic.
What Vero has in front of it when generating a note
When you click Generate, Vero assembles seven things into a single request:
The transcript from your recording.
Your written text — anything you typed into the encounter before generating.
Uploaded documents — PDFs, Word files, images, referral letters, lab results.
Patient details — past medical history, medications, allergies, social and family history from the patient's profile.
Your template — the
[fields],(rules), and static text you wrote.Your Learnings — up to your most recent previous notes using this same template, used as style examples.
Your settings — detail level, bullets vs paragraphs, abbreviations, quotes, and your Replace terms.
The priority order, top to bottom
When any of these inputs conflict, Vero resolves the conflict in a strict order. Understanding the order is the single most useful mental model for the template system.
Priority, highest to lowest:
1. Clinical accuracy — never fabricate or infer information not in the source.
2. Source material rules — transcript takes precedence over uploads when they disagree; written text is honoured as intentional.
3. Learnings — if you have previous notes on this template, they are the ground truth for style, format, headers, phrasing, and line structure. They override template formatting and user settings.
4. Template content rules — your [fields] and (parenthetical rules) control what goes where in the note.
5. User settings and formatting overrides — detail level, bullets/paragraphs, abbreviations, and quotes apply when Learnings aren't present.
A few consequences of this order :
If you've built up Learnings on a template, turning on Abbreviations or Bullets in your settings will have less effect than expected — your Learnings override them.
A rule in the template will beat your user settings. If the template says
(use paragraphs), paragraphs win even if your settings say bullets.Clinical accuracy beats everything. You can write
(always include suicide risk assessment)but if nothing was discussed, Vero will leave it blank rather than fabricate.
Source material: transcript, written text, uploads
Vero treats the three sources of source material differently.
Source | Role |
Transcript | Primary source. If a transcript and an uploaded document both mention blood pressure with different numbers, the transcript wins because it reflects the current encounter. |
Written text | Honoured as intentional. Anything you typed into the encounter — custom instructions, a pasted referral letter, a corrected value — is treated as something you deliberately wanted in the note. |
Uploaded documents | Used for historical context (referrals, past consultations, test results) or when they are the only source available. |
This ordering is also how you can override a template for a single encounter without editing the template. If you want a specific formatting change or a note in a different style, typing the instruction into the encounter's written text section is often enough.
Built-in clinical safety rules
On top of your template, Vero enforces a set of clinical safety rules that apply to every note regardless of what your template says. These exist to prevent common documentation errors.
Symptoms go to Subjective. Patient-reported symptoms never end up in Objective or Assessment, even if a rule puts them there.
Vitals and labs go to Objective. They never appear in Subjective, Assessment, or Plan.
Assessment requires explicit diagnosis. Vero never infers a diagnosis from symptoms. If the clinician didn't state one, the section is left blank.
Standardized normal exam phrases. When the source says a system is "normal", Vero uses a standard normal phrase for that system, rather than inventing details.
Planned vs completed investigations. Completed results go in Objective; planned or pending tests go in Plan.
How Learnings interact with templates
Learnings are the most powerful feature in the template system. They are style ground truth, not content ground truth.
What Learnings control:
Section headers and how they're written (
S:vsSubjective:).List style — whether you use hyphens, bullets, or plain prose.
Line break patterns. If your previous notes put one sentence per line, Vero will match that exactly.
Clinical phrasing — "denies chest pain" vs "no chest pain" vs "chest pain: negative".
Capitalization and punctuation micro-patterns.
Signature and footer formatting.
What Learnings do not control:
Content placement. Your template still decides which section every fact goes in.
What to include or exclude. Parenthetical rules in your template still apply.
Key insight: Learnings teach Vero how you write. Templates teach Vero what goes where. Detail level tells Vero how much to include. These three are independent — you can change any one without breaking the others.
See the dedicated Learnings article for how to train Vero on your style.
User settings — the fine control layer
When you don't have Learnings, your user settings control formatting. Here's what each one does and when to use it.
Detail level: Low, Medium, High
Unique in that it is not overridden by Learnings — it is a separate axis.
Low — extremely concise. Fragmented phrases ("Throat clear", "No chest pain", "Afebrile"). One-line summaries. No filler. Designed for high-volume clinics and follow-up visits.
Medium — balanced. Plain, direct, clinically complete without over-documentation. The right choice for most encounters.
High — every available clinical detail, no summarization. Use for complex cases, medicolegal situations, or when you need a complete record.
Bullets vs paragraphs
Controls the structural format of section content. Bullets produces hyphen-minus lists; Paragraphs produces full sentences in prose. Both override template formatting unless you have Learnings — in which case Learnings win.
Abbreviations
When on, Vero uses standard medical abbreviations (SOB, CP, N/V, PMHx, BID, TID, PRN, WNL, R/O, etc.) throughout. When off, it writes words out.
Use the global toggle when you want the same behaviour across every template. Hard-code abbreviation rules in a template (Use standard medical abbreviations for medications and frequencies) when you want them in some notes and not others.
Quotes
When on, Vero includes direct patient quotes where they carry clinical weight — mental health, pain quality, statements that reveal insight — and paraphrases elsewhere. When off, no quotes appear.
Most useful for mental health and pain-focused practices. See the Note Customization article for more.
Replace: the clinic-wide consistency lever
Your Replace list is applied to every note generated from every template. This makes it the cleanest way to enforce clinic-wide terminology without editing every template.
Good things to put in Replace rather than in templates:
Common drug-name mis-spellings Vero's transcription gets wrong.
Your preferred abbreviation expansions (e.g. tylenol → acetaminophen).
Clinic-specific terminology or preferred phrasings.
Names of colleagues, locations, or referral partners that get mis-transcribed.
See the Replace article for how to manage your list.
Putting it all together — a worked example
Imagine a family physician with:
A SOAP template with
(Only include findings explicitly mentioned)at the end.Four Learnings on that template — all one sentence per line, with "S:", "O:", "A:", "P:" as headers.
Detail level set to Medium.
Bullets on in settings.
A Replace entry
Instead of: tylenol → Do this: acetaminophen.
For the next encounter, Vero will:
Read the transcript, written text, and uploads. Never invent what isn't there.
Place every fact according to the template's section assignment rules, honouring
(Only include findings explicitly mentioned).Format the output using the Learnings style: "S:", "O:", "A:", "P:" headers, one sentence per line — even though the user setting says bullets, because Learnings override.
Include a medium amount of detail, because detail level is independent of Learnings.
Replace every mention of "tylenol" with "acetaminophen".
Design principles for bullet-proof templates
Use the template for content placement. That's what it's best at: deciding which section gets what.
Let Learnings handle style. Don't put detailed formatting rules in the template if your Learnings will handle them. The more your Learnings know, the simpler your template can be.
Use rules for constraints, not aesthetics. "Only include if explicitly mentioned" is a constraint. "Use nice clean formatting" is aesthetics. Leave aesthetics to Learnings and settings.
Use Replace for everything that should apply across every template. One Replace entry is worth editing ten templates.
Test with edge cases. A good template produces clean output when the source is complete, and also when half the fields have no source data. Run both kinds of encounters through it before trusting it.