doctor reviews online are only somewhat helpful. especially with shrinks...all it takes are a couple highly motivated, pissed off patients to smear a doc's online reputation. not that all the ratings are useless, just...take it with a grain of salt.

personally, if you're in intense suffering right now, id make an appointment with a doc your insurance is OK with, and go from there. If he or she is awful, go elsewhere next time.

do you have any self-pay shrinks where you are? we have a couple in a city kinda nearby, and I've been thinking about it. Kinda $$$, but the docs who don't deal with insurance charge less than self-pay for docs who do insurance (I'm guessing they don't need as much staff?), so...yeah. maybe that's an option for you, too?