How We Test Services

At Verywell Mind, our mission is to offer reliable, compassionate, and up-to-date information on the mental health topics that mean the most to you. And when it comes to purchasing decisions, whether you want to sign up for online therapy or find a helpful meditation app, you deserve peace of mind. That’s why we take care with every service or company we research, rigorously test, and ultimately recommend.

We conduct market research, interview industry experts, survey users, and test products with a comprehensive methodology in order to ensure we only give you recommendations you can trust. While we do receive an affiliate commission on some of the services you sign up for through our content, our recommendations are curated based on performance, test results, and hands-on experience.

Our Testing Process

Prior to testing any products or services, our team of writers and editors evaluate a given health service industry in order to fully understand its business model and what buyers are looking for. This involves working with industry experts—such as mental health professionals, medical doctors, dietitians, and other health professionals—in order to determine how the service works, what medical need it is serving, how pricing works, whether insurance is accepted, and how medically valuable the service is for readers. 

This research allows us to make a comprehensive list of all the key players in the industry based on company reputation, brand authority, medical need, and value to the user. We make sure that our list of services and platforms to evaluate not only encompasses the biggest names in the field, but also new players or companies that stand out for their ability to serve users nationwide for specific needs. 

Diversity

We are dedicated to ensuring that our content reflects the diversity of our audience. To do this, we make a point of looking for companies that are inclusive, affirming, safe, and working to be affordable and accessible, regardless of your income, your family size, where you live, and how you identify. We also take great care to research brands, services, and companies founded by people who identify as BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) and other minority groups whenever possible. Read our full commitment to anti-racism.

Expert Input

Once we have our list of health companies, products, and services, we have our subject matter expert check it to make sure there aren’t any red flags (aka, important companies in the industry that are missing, or companies that have come under scrutiny lately that should be removed). For example, when evaluating online therapy providers this year, we made a list of over 80 therapy companies and 40 therapist directories before narrowing that list to the most ethical, helpful 55 companies and 25 directories. 

Research

Next, we develop a thorough research methodology that will allow us to evaluate all the factors that matter most to the reader and decide how we gather data on these services. In some cases, this will involve working with our research team to acquire reliable, objective data that we can use to evaluate a company’s prices, plans, and qualifications. In other cases, it will involve surveying hundreds of users of these companies to learn more about their experience and why they chose to use the company. For example, we ask them how they heard about the company, what they were seeking treatment or help for, and whether they still see themselves using the service in six or 12 months' time. We also ask them how they’d rate the service, whether they’d recommend it to others, whether they found their provider’s bedside manner to be professional, or whether they’d use the service or company again themselves in the future. With every survey, we take care to ensure that our respondents are from different gender identities, as well as different financial, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds. 

Wherever it is possible and ethical, we will also sign up for these services ourselves in order to test each one and write about the entire process of using the company’s service or product. In doing so, we evaluate the sign-up process, the payment process, and how easy it is to switch providers or plans, return products, or cancel the service and/or subscription. We also evaluate, as part of our testing, the quality of care delivered and the overall customer service experience. Where healthcare deserts are a concern, we also work to test the service’s availability across geographical regions in order to ensure that our recommendations are useful to readers all across the country, not just in metropolitan areas. We ensure that our testing is done by writers and editors of diverse backgrounds as well to ensure we evaluate the company from more than one perspective. 

In addition to the objective testing results, we also weigh qualitative insights: Was the therapist the company paired us with during our testing process culturally sensitive or LGBTQ+ affirming? Was the app that comes with this subscription easy to use and helpful to the customer? Did we struggle to administer the at-home test because the instructions were confusing? We take it upon ourselves to editorialize the testing data in order to provide easy-to-understand reasons you can trust our recommendations. You can also trust us to tell you what could be better about the services we recommend. 

This is why, as part of our research, we interview experts, read peer-reviewed studies about the product or service (if they exist), and do a deep dive into the company’s reputation, business practices, and privacy policies. For example, perhaps a company was involved in a scandal a few years back but has since addressed the issue—we believe that this might still be something buyers would want to know, so we strive to include this information in our reviews, roundups, and other articles. We will always tell you if a service is not HIPAA-compliant, has come under scrutiny for how it handles your sensitive healthcare information, is too lenient in its prescribing practices, or sends you a product that is not FDA-approved. We do this to help you make the most informed decision and select the product that will best suit your individual needs. 

Our Methodology and Expertise in Mental Health

The service recommendations from Verywell Mind are purely editorial. Every company, product, and service roundup and review we write is not only based on extensive and unparalleled research in this field but on the targeted expertise of each writer who creates them. While we do have affiliate partnerships with certain companies that we sometimes recommend, our team always puts editorial integrity first. We never let retailers, public relations firms, or salespeople dictate our content and coverage.

We work with subject matter experts that have years of experience in their health or mental health field to evaluate each company and service we review. Their insights are based on extensive, qualified experience as health professionals—and we take great care to ensure there is no conflict of interest when we hire them. 

In addition, once written, every one of our articles is medically reviewed and vetted by a mental health or medical professional on the Verywell Mind Review Board. Where appropriate, we also run our content by our anti-bias review board to ensure that our content is inclusive, culturally sensitive and affirming to people of all backgrounds. Of course, we do still recommend you check with a healthcare professional if you’re unsure whether a service is safe for you. 

Our team is also relentless when it comes to updating our content and keeping our recommendations fresh, accurate, and helpful. We keep tabs on pricing to ensure our content is always up to date and we monitor the daily news to ensure that any company we recommend is engaging in safe practices. We will always remove any company or service from any of our articles if that ever changes as new information comes to light. 

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If you have questions, comments, or opinions you’d like to share with our team of editors, please feel free to email us at commercefeedback@dotdash.com