Dr. Jameca CooperForensic Psychology Consultant, Emergence Psychological Services · Board Certified Counseling Psychologist and Forensic Psychology Consultant

How to Access Mental Health Services WITH Insurance

29 Oct 2021 · 3 min

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3:11

This content was created by Dr. Jameca Cooper. This content was uploaded by Dr. Jameca Cooper. This is a YouTube video titled "How to Access Mental Health Services WITH Insurance" (posted 2021-10-29) featuring Dr. Jameca Cooper as a single speaker. It is an informational/talk-style presentation in which Dr. Cooper explains how to find and access mental health providers when you have health insurance. She gives practical tips: use your insurer's provider directory (e.g., Blue Cross Blue Shield), review providers' websites and social media, search Psychology Today with insurance filters to find in-network clinicians and see who is accepting new patients, and rely on word-of-mouth recommendations from friends, family, coworkers, or community members.

Chapters

Hi, I'm Dr. Jameca Cooper, and today I want to talk to you about how to access mental health services with insurance. It can be a pretty tricky world out here just to be able to find someone that you can talk to or have counseling with, whether they are a psychologist or therapist. So I'm going to give you a few tips today on how to do that.— it really matters whether or not you have insurance. Today we're talking specifically about if you have health insurance. So one of the main things you can do to find a provider if you have health insurance is to go to the website of your insurance provider. So let's say for instance you are a member of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois. You would go to the website of that, look under services, providers, providers in network or out of network, depending on what your plan says. And that way you can find all the providers who accept that insurance in your network and in your area. My second tip is to browse through providers in your area. Look at their websites, look at their social media if they have social media pages. So check out their Twitter, check out their Instagram, their Facebook, See if they have a website. Usually if they have a website, they'll offer information on their background, their specializations, their availabilities, their services, and maybe even talk a little bit about their theories. So that would be my tip number 2, look out on websites and social media. My third tip would be to look at a resource like Psychology Today. Surely by now you've heard of it. It is a place where most counselors and psychologists are registered and listed on. So if you go to the website Psychology Today, you can filter just based on your insurance. So if you have Blue Cross, you can filter out all the providers on Psychology Today that accept Blue Cross. That is a really good way to find who in your area accepts that insurance. And another good thing about Psychology Today is it usually also tells you about if providers are accepting new patients. So that's a tip you will also need. My last tip, and my very, very best tip to give you on how to access mental health services, is to ask the people around you. So word of mouth— usually your friends and your family, co-workers, neighbors, anyone, maybe church members— can tell you about really good providers in your area. Maybe they've seen one, maybe they know someone who has seen this therapist, maybe they read about an article that focus on this therapist. But I found that usually the people you know can be one of the best resources for how to find providers, and so that you can find someone and receive mental health services. It's a tricky world out here. Hopefully you can use these tips and find providers in your area to get the help you need. Make sure you subscribe to this channel. I'm Dr. Jameca Cooper.