How to Find the Right Therapist When You Have UnitedHealthcare
Having UnitedHealthcare can solve one part of finding a therapist: how you’re going to pay for it.
It doesn’t necessarily make it any easier to figure out who you actually want to talk to.
In some ways, having a large network can make that part harder. You open a directory, filter for therapists, and suddenly you’re looking at name after name after name.
One therapist specializes in anxiety. Another lists trauma, relationships, women’s issues, life transitions, and twelve other things. One has a doctorate. Another practices IFS. Someone else describes herself as somatic, relational, and trauma-informed.
Okay, but who are you actually supposed to choose?
And perhaps more importantly, how are you supposed to know which of those things actually matter?
I’ve been a psychologist since 2014, and I now run a Chicago practice with about 40 therapists. My answer may be a little surprising: some of the things people use to choose a therapist matter much less than they think they do.
Being in-network doesn’t tell you whether someone is a great therapist. A particular degree doesn’t guarantee that you’ll connect with someone. And finding a therapist who practices the modality you Googled at 11 p.m. doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve found the person who is going to understand you.
Those things give you information.
But finding the right therapist is ultimately about something much more human.
What does “in-network with UnitedHealthcare” actually tell you?
Mostly, it tells you something about how you’re going to pay for therapy.
An in-network therapist has a contractual relationship with your insurance network. Depending on your specific UnitedHealthcare plan, you may have a copay, coinsurance, or a deductible to meet before your plan begins paying its portion.
That’s important. Therapy is a recurring expense, and being able to use your insurance benefits can make ongoing therapy much more financially accessible.
But being in-network does not tell you:
whether you’ll feel comfortable talking to the therapist
how much experience they have with the specific thing you’re going through
whether their personality will work with yours
how they actually practice therapy
whether they’ll understand the nuances of your relationships or identity
whether they have an appointment available at a time you can actually attend
Insurance companies have credentialing requirements for participating clinicians, but they aren’t matchmaking services.
So I would think about “in-network” as one important filter, rather than evidence that you’ve found the right therapist.
Why finding a UnitedHealthcare therapist can still feel so overwhelming
The obvious solution is to open the UnitedHealthcare provider directory and start searching.
And you absolutely can.
Illinois has requirements around the information insurers maintain in their provider directories, including whether providers are accepting new patients, their specialties, locations, telehealth availability, and other information.
But even a perfectly accurate insurance directory has a fundamental limitation.
It is a database. You’re trying to choose a person.
A directory has to turn therapists into searchable variables: location, gender, degree, specialty, telehealth, network status.
Some of those variables matter. But they’re incomplete representations of the actual clinician.
A therapist can have years of experience working with women after pregnancy, for example, without holding the particular certification you searched for. Someone can list “trauma” as a specialty and work very differently from another therapist who checks the exact same box.
And “accepting new patients” doesn’t necessarily tell you whether that therapist has the Tuesday afternoon appointment you need.
That’s one reason people often end up leaving the insurance directory and searching Google, Psychology Today, or more specialized therapist directories instead.
Then you encounter a different problem.
You find someone who sounds great. You send a message. You wait.
Maybe you hear back and they’re full.
Maybe they have a waitlist.
Maybe their only opening is at 11 a.m. when you have a standing meeting.
Maybe you don’t hear back at all.
So you message five more therapists.
At some point, finding a therapist has somehow become its own part-time job, which is particularly unhelpful when you’re looking for therapy because you already feel like you’re at capacity.
Start with the things that actually need to be true
Before worrying about modalities and credentials, I’d start with the practical non-negotiables.
If using your UnitedHealthcare benefits is important, does the therapist participate in your particular network?
If you want in-person therapy, can you realistically get to their office on a regular basis?
If you prefer telehealth, do they offer it and are they licensed to see you where you live?
Do they have availability that works with your schedule?
Do they work with the general reason you’re coming to therapy?
These aren’t particularly exciting questions, but they can eliminate a lot of options quickly.
And if you prefer telehealth, geography may matter much less than you think. More than half of our clients at Balanced Awakening currently choose telehealth. If you’re physically located in Illinois and seeing an appropriately licensed Illinois therapist via telehealth, you don’t necessarily need to limit yourself to the three therapists whose offices happen to be closest to your apartment.
Once the practical pieces work, then you can think about fit.
You probably don’t need to care as much about credentials as you think you do
People understandably pay attention to the letters after a therapist’s name.
Psychologist. LCSW. LCPC. LMFT.
Those credentials tell you something meaningful about a clinician’s education, training, licensure, and scope of practice.
What they don’t give you is a therapist ranking system.
A master’s-level therapist with excellent postgraduate training, strong clinical judgment, and years of experience may be a much better therapist for you than someone with a doctorate.
I’ve hired and supervised a lot of therapists. Degree level is simply not how I would predict whether you’re going to have a meaningful therapeutic relationship with someone.
Credentials matter.
They’re just not the whole story.
You also don’t need to become an expert in therapy modalities
This is another place where I see people getting stuck.
You start researching therapy and suddenly the internet tells you that you need IFS.
Or somatic therapy.
Or CBT.
Or psychodynamic therapy.
Or EMDR.
And now, in addition to whatever is happening in your life that made you start looking for therapy, apparently you need to get a minor degree in psychotherapy modalities.
You don’t.
Different therapeutic approaches are genuinely different, and there are situations where a particular kind of treatment is important. If you already know that you want to work in a specific way, by all means use that information in your search.
But I’ve also talked to plenty of people who arrive convinced that they need a particular modality without really knowing what receiving that kind of therapy will be like.
For most people looking for individual therapy for anxiety, relationships, trauma, self-esteem, life transitions, work stress, or simply feeling overwhelmed, I would care a lot about how the therapist works with you, not just the acronym attached to their profile.
So what does a good therapist actually feel like?
This is harder to put into a directory filter.
Good therapy should feel like you can show up and be yourself.
You don’t have to impress your therapist. You don’t have to perform therapy correctly. You don’t need to walk into every session with an agenda or accomplish something profound before the 55 minutes are up.
You should feel like your therapist is actually getting to know you, rather than deciding what technique to use on you five minutes after you sit down.
Especially in trauma-informed therapy, pacing matters. A therapist shouldn’t be pushing you into things simply because a particular intervention is theoretically supposed to help.
Sometimes therapy involves learning a concrete coping skill.
Sometimes it involves being challenged.
Sometimes the most important thing happening is that another person is paying very close attention to you and helping you understand something you’ve never quite been able to see on your own.
That’s part of what we mean at Balanced Awakening when we talk about therapy being relational, trauma-informed, and integrative.
We’re not committed to making you fit a particular therapeutic model.
The therapy needs to fit you.
How can you tell any of this from a therapist’s profile?
You can’t. At least not completely.
But you can look for clues.
Does the therapist sound like a person?
Can you understand what they are saying, or does their bio read like a collection of clinical terminology?
Do they talk about the kinds of experiences you’re actually having?
If they have a video, watch it. Hearing someone’s voice and seeing how they communicate can sometimes tell you more than another paragraph about their credentials.
And pay attention to your reaction.
Sometimes you read a profile and think, I could probably talk to this person.
I wouldn’t discount that.
Therapy is a relationship, and you can’t reduce a relationship to a checklist.
At the same time, you do not need to experience an immediate “THIS IS MY THERAPIST” revelation.
You’re choosing someone to meet, not making a lifelong commitment.
Sometimes you need a session or two before you know what the relationship actually feels like.
What should I ask during a therapist consultation?
Whatever you actually want to know.
I know that isn’t the satisfying internet answer, because I’m supposed to give you a checklist of 17 questions to ask every prospective therapist.
I don’t think you need one.
If you’re worried about something, ask.
If you’re wondering whether they’ve worked with women going through divorce, ask.
If you’re specifically interested in somatic therapy, ask what that actually looks like in their sessions.
If you’ve had therapy before and hated sitting across from someone who barely spoke, tell them that.
If you’re worried that you’re going to be pushed into talking about something before you’re ready, ask how they approach that.
You’re not interviewing someone for a job. You’re trying to get enough information to decide whether you’d like to sit down with this person and see what happens.
And you don’t necessarily need a consultation at all.
Some people love having a 15-minute conversation first. Other people would rather book the appointment and actually meet the therapist.
Both are fine.
What if I choose the wrong therapist?
I think this fear drives more of the therapist-search process than people realize.
Because starting therapy involves telling someone things.
And if it doesn’t work out, now you have to find another person and potentially tell them all of those things again.
So of course you want to get it right.
But there is a difference between making a thoughtful choice and trying to eliminate all uncertainty before you’ve even met someone.
You can’t know exactly what a therapeutic relationship will be like from a Psychology Today profile.
Choose someone who meets your practical requirements, has appropriate experience, and gives you enough of a sense that you might feel comfortable talking to them.
Then meet them.
Notice how you feel.
Do you feel heard?
Do you feel judged?
Does the therapist seem curious about you?
Are they listening to what you’re actually saying?
Do you feel like you can correct them if they misunderstand something?
Do you feel pressured to move faster than you want to?
You don’t have to decide everything after one appointment, either.
Give yourself permission to find out.
What if the therapist I want has a waitlist?
This depends partly on why you’re seeking therapy and how urgently you need support.
If there’s a particular therapist you feel strongly about and your situation isn’t urgent, it may be completely reasonable to join their waitlist.
You can also join the waitlist and keep looking.
But I wouldn’t assume that the therapist with a waitlist is somehow better than the therapist with availability.
Availability is not a quality rating.
Sometimes the person who can see you this week is an exceptional therapist who happens to have an opening.
There is an easier way to do this
Part of the reason I care so much about this topic is that I’ve watched how unnecessarily difficult we’ve made it for people to start therapy.
You’re already dealing with something.
Maybe a relationship has ended.
Maybe your marriage isn’t feeling the way you want it to.
Maybe you’re working ridiculous hours and can’t figure out how to stop.
Maybe you just had a baby and nothing quite feels like you expected.
Or maybe nothing dramatic happened at all. You just realized that you’re at capacity and don’t want to keep doing everything by yourself.
That is not an ideal moment to send inquiries into the void and wait to see who responds.
We’ve intentionally built Balanced Awakening differently.
We have about 40 therapists with a wide range of specialties, and you can see which therapists are currently accepting new clients before you spend time reading through their profiles.
You can see whether they’re offering in-person therapy, telehealth, or both.
If you find someone you like, you can book your own appointment online. You don’t have to call us. You don’t have to wait for an intake coordinator to conduct an assessment before you’re allowed to schedule. And in many cases, you can get started within a few days.
If you’d rather talk to the therapist first, you can schedule a consultation.
And if you’re reading all of this thinking, Hannah, the entire problem is that I do not want to choose, that’s fine too.
That’s why we have therapist matchmaking.
Tell us what you’re looking for, when you’re available, whether you want telehealth or in-person therapy, and anything else that’s important to you. We’ll look at the clinicians who actually have availability and recommend a couple of therapists who we think could be a good fit.
You don’t have to keep opening tabs.
You don’t have to message another ten therapists.
And you definitely don’t need to figure out whether you want IFS, somatic therapy, psychodynamic therapy, or some modality you’ve never heard of before you can ask for help.
Having UnitedHealthcare can give you access to therapy. Finding the right therapist is about finding a person you can actually do therapy with.
If you’ve been searching for a UnitedHealthcare therapist in Chicago and you’re ready to stop searching, browse our therapists who are accepting new clients or let us match you with a therapist.
We’ll take it from here.
