Look carefully at each practitioner on your list, and then do apples-to-apples comparisons.
Now it’s time to dive into the portals of the professionals on your list. Your search variables brought you to this point and it's now time to see everything that they do as professionals. Each tab contains information to understand their common factors and what differentiates one professional from another. First, check the “Announcements” tab to be sure each is currently accepting new clients.
Examine their practice philosophies Every professional has a style of practice that you might want to have them describe. While it’s sometimes difficult to translate into lay terms, their stated practice philosophies can give you a feel for the overall approach they use and what you can expect in your work with them.
Read up on their practice specialties and cultural specialties Learn more about how they came to concentrate their clinical practice on certain problems/issues and people. A practitioner may also have a treatment approach or technique which is highly specialized and they will want you to know about those treatment practices as well. Whether you really need a specialist or not is a judgment call, but it's valuable to appreciate the areas of expertise declared by the practitioners you are considering.
Check out their professional background and affiliations
They all came from somewhere before they started practicing in your community. Look to see their years of experience and their ongoing memberships in professional organizations locally and nationally. Each AgoraMHN professional is licensed to practice in one or more states and his/her license number is provided so you can verify their current standing with their state's licensing board.
Watch the video interviews
Words in print can’t communicate the way video interviews can. Here’s where you can get a personal feel for the person. We require that each professional sit for an interview or upload their answers to some standard interview questions. We hope this will give you a standard frame of reference. We also ask them to answer additional questions--of their own choosing--so that they can communicate things to describe their practice. That’s not all. Additionally, member professionals can upload additional videos or links to external videos to round out the information they’d like you to have at the outset of your search. Check out the "My Activity" tab to see even more videos and learn about any seminars they might have to offer. If they have downloadable whitepapers, articles, questionnaires, or forms to fill out, you'll find them here.
Look at their opinions and commentary (blog)
Need some examples of their professional scholarship? Have a look at what they've written. The subject of that content is limitless, and, so long as the content is relevant to professional practice, we encourage professional members to post. See something you’re also interested in? Feel free to comment, connect, or share on social media. They’ll thank you for it!
Use the side-by-side comparison feature
If you’re like most consumers, the more you search and the more you read, the more confused you’re likely to get. It’s just too darn hard to remember everything. Which means that it's incredibly hard to balance. So, AFTER you’ve thoroughly researched your suitable candidates, you may want to use the comparison function to compare each with the other; an apples-to-apples comparison of sorts. To do that, go back to your search list--hopefully you saved it--and select up to three professionals to compare with each other. You can perform this comparison as many times as you want to get it down to several desirable or preferred professionals.
A little more to go... move on to Step 3