Show HN: Free Service to Find a Therapist
neb.health
neb.health
Our company, Neb, offers a free service to help you find a mental healthcare provider. You can submit a form or schedule a phone call to explain your needs and we come back to you with a few available matches within a week.
* we personally call all providers first to ensure they're available and a fit
* therapists and providers who can prescribe medication
* specialty, availability, culture, and other factors are taken into account
* in-network or affordable options if needed
* we can call your insurance on your behalf to help you understand your coverage
* based in San Jose, available anywhere in California
We formed our company in January and launched with another idea in mental health in June. We just finished Startup School, and launched this service last month. We’ve had 20 users for this service so far.
We did a lot of user interviews and found that the process of finding a mental healthcare provider is really complicated. You have to reach out to a lot of providers, it takes time, you have to call people, information online is outdated, and people don’t know what to look for.
If you want help looking for a therapist, please check out our website (www.neb.health). Otherwise, feel free to ask us any questions. Thanks!
Be careful with referral agencies:
https://www.recoveryanswers.org/resource/scams-corruption-ad...
Bad: my uBlock Origin blocked 8 resources on the page, including scripts from Google and Facebook.
We have Google and Facebook pixels from when we were running ads. What are your thoughts on that? You would have to browse in incognito, because of how many sites have pixels, and not use Gmail/Messenger/Whatsapp if you didn't want to disclose the fact you're searching for a mental healthcare provider to Google or Facebook.
Or with a recent version of Firefox. Or with an ad blocker. My thoughts are this: just because most users will likely leave trace with Google by visiting from SERP, doesn't mean you should volunteer more data points for third party advertisers, especially when we're talking medically relevant data. And there will be users who will visit your site via links from other sites where they weren't tracked (e.g. from here!). So please don't do this.
Hopefully you will expand this service to other states, especially ones on the east coast...
My experience was it is fruitless endeavor trying to find a therapist that actually practices CBT for less than 200/hr.
For me, it seems crazy in the year 2020 that a therapist wouldn't introduce basic analytics into the process with something like a brief mood survey after each session to know if therapy is ...for lack of a better term..."working".
Zero therapists I've found via the NYC therapist-finder sites do this.
We aren't a directory - we will call/email therapists for you to ensure anyone we recommend to you is available and a fit. We have called 50+ therapists for some users.
The problem with the directory model is you still have to reach out to each therapist individually.
And ya, a lot of therapists have CBT thrown in as a buzzword - we screen for that when we talk to therapists if a user wants a CBT therapist.
-why should I use your service when most therapists will still want to talk with me before taking me on as a patient, repeating the same problems I am facing and evaluating whether we make a good fit?
-In my experience, a service like Psychology Today is good for narrowing certain qualitatives about a therapist. The challenge isn’t finding a therapist practicing CBT or Gestalt techniques, it’s finding someone I connect with human to human. Is this something your service makes easier?
It sounds like you are a lot more informed about mental healthcare than a lot of people, which is great. Generally, most people don't know what to look for in terms of style or fit, and we're a lot more robust with our search.
To answer your questions:
1. We almost always have to reach out to 20+ therapists, and routinely reach out to 30, 40, 50 to find someone with availability and a couple of criteria the user specifies (e.g. good with immigrants, or available Tuesday mornings). Also if someone wants an in-network provider.
2. This would be great, and are thinking about asking providers and users what their communication styles are as a first step. How would you like us to address this? What questions about the therapist would you like answered upfront?
How do you differentiate yourselves?
You have to reach out to 15-20 therapists to find an available match, and Psychology Today doesn't help you with that. We will reach out to 20+ therapists for you.
Also, we have a phone call with each therapist before we recommend them to you to ensure they're available and meet your criteria as best as possible.