Can you trust anything you get online? Well, of course some things you need to be careful about, especially when it comes to your health and well-being. No matter what you are planning to get online, whether it is a pair of shoes, new car, or a psychologist, you have to check the facts.
Check Their Credentials
The first thing you need to do when you use a website to find a psychologist is to check the credentials of the website. According to Google, there are over 30 trillion websites and there are more popping up every day so how are you supposed to know who is real and who is not real? There are tips and tricks to this but the best thing to do first is use common sense. If it looks unprofessional, has spelling and grammatical errors, you may want to skip that one. Here are some other tips:
- Check the URL – If the website has a URL that says something other than what the webpage says, you should think twice about that site. In other words, if you are on a page that is supposed to be from the American Psychological Association but the URL says www.getsomehelp.com, you may be on a scam site.
- Check the Site Reviews – Do not just rely on the reviews that the website offers you. Go to Google, Bing, or Yahoo and type in the website’s URL in parentheses. For example, use “www.betterhelp.com” for the BetterHelp website.
- Check the Business Itself– Sites like the Better Business Bureau or Scamguard can let you know if there are complaints against the website.
- Check the Psychologist – All licensed psychologists have to register and stay up to date on their licensure. To check out your psychologist, go to The Association of State and Provincial Psychology Boards website and find your state. Click on the link for your state and from there you can look up your psychologist by name. If they are not listed, they are not licensed in your state and you should find a different one.
Changing Psychologists
After you have found the right site and the right psychologist for you, do not forget that you can change psychologists anytime you want. It is your prerogative to decide who you have as a mental health care professional and if you are not completely comfortable with the one you have, find a different one.
Online Psychologists
The good thing about having an online psychologist is that you can switch them much easier. If you are seeing a psychologist in person, you are going to have to go through a long process of looking for another one who will serve your needs who is accepting new patients and does not have a long waiting list for an appointment. And, if you are using insurance, you will have to check with them to approve your switch and find out if the new psychologist is acceptable to them. They may even make you give some sort of explanation about why you want to switch. Then, you have to wait until your appointment before you meet them and decide whether he or she is the right one for you. If not, you will have to go through this process all over again.
If your psychologist is online, you can switch anytime you want and as many times as you want. You can check online whether they are available for new patients, what kind of reviews they have, and what types of issues they specialize in. Having an online psychologist makes things so much faster and easier, you can switch as much as you like without having to wait. No appointment necessary and no need to leave your house.