Coverage: Aetna in Texas
Medication management in Texas, in network with Aetna.
If you have Aetna and you live in Texas, this page is the short version of how care here works with your plan. PsychMed Care is the medication management practice of Solutions Psychiatry: psychiatric prescribing by secure telehealth, anywhere in Texas, with your Aetna coverage checked and your exact cost stated before the first visit. No referral runaround to decode on your own, and no bill that explains itself after the fact.
PsychMed Care is the medication management practice of Solutions Psychiatry. If you are looking for therapy, or therapy and medication together, the full practice is at psych.us.
What in network means here
What in network with Aetna actually gets you
In network is a contract between the practice and the insurer. What it should mean for you is simpler: a known price, agreed in advance, instead of retail rates and a surprise.
Verified before the first visit
When you book, the plan details from your Aetna card are checked against the practice's Aetna contract. You are told your copay, or that a deductible applies first, before the appointment happens. If anything about the plan does not check out, you hear that too, with the self-pay rates in front of you.
One name, many plans
Aetna sells and administers a wide range of plans: employer plans of every size, marketplace plans, plans a spouse's job carries. Two cards that look alike can sit on very different benefits. That is why verification reads the plan behind your card, not just the logo on it.
The deductible question, answered early
Some Aetna plans apply a deductible to specialist visits before the copay starts. If yours is one of them, early visits bill at the contracted rate until the deductible is met, and you are told that up front, in numbers, so the first statement is never the first time you see the figure.
Care that stays in one place
Your prescriber here manages the whole medication picture: what you take now, what you have tried, what interacts. There is no separate in-network hunt for follow-ups, labs, or testing. Labs are drawn at any lab near you, and GeneSight testing, when it fits the plan, is arranged through the same visits.
If things reach the point of thoughts of harming yourself, help is available now: call or text 988, text HOME to 741741 for Crisis Text Line, or call the NAMI Helpline at 1-800-950-6264. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911. This practice is not an emergency service. The crisis page lists more options.
Care in Texas
Texas care, without the Texas drive
Texas is large enough that a specialist can be in your state and still be six hours away. This practice is telehealth first: appointments by secure video from wherever in Texas you are, from El Paso to Texarkana and the Valley to the Panhandle. Your prescriber is Dr. Karel Winner, a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner who holds a Doctor of Nursing Practice from Vanderbilt University and a graduate degree in education from Vanderbilt University. The practice keeps an office in Austin, at 5900 Balcones Drive STE 100, and in-person visits there are arranged when federal or DEA requirements call for one, planned with you well in advance. Medicare is also accepted in Texas, so an Aetna card is not the only route in.
How it starts
Booking, verification, then the hour itself
The order is deliberate: the coverage question is settled before the clinical one starts.
Book the first appointment
Pick a time through the booking link or by phone. Booking asks for your insurance details, which is what starts the verification.
Your Aetna plan is checked
Coverage, copay, and any deductible are confirmed and stated to you before the visit. The number you are given is the number you are charged.
The first appointment
A full 60 minutes: your history, your health, every medication you have tried, and a plan with a target. Follow-up Appointments after that run 30 minutes, measured and adjusted.
Cost and coverage
What it costs, and what your plan covers
The first appointment is a 60-minute Comprehensive Initial Appointment at $350. Follow-up Appointments run 30 minutes at $250 each. Most patients here use insurance: copays are typically $0 to $40, and your coverage and your exact cost are verified before your first visit, so the number is known before you commit to anything. In network: Aetna, Cigna and Evernorth, UnitedHealthcare and Optum, the Blue Cross Blue Shield family, Oscar, Oxford, Carelon, and Providence, plus Medicare in Arizona, California, Colorado, Texas, and Utah, and Medicaid in Oregon and Wyoming. Care is by secure telehealth in 34 states plus DC, for ages 17 and up. You can book here, or call (800) 303-3221.
Related pages: this plan in other states, Aetna in California, Aetna in New York. Other plans in Texas: Cigna in Texas, UnitedHealthcare in Texas, Blue Cross Blue Shield in Texas. The full picture of what medication care costs is on the visits and fees page.
“Knowing the exact copay before the first visit took the last excuse away.”
Start with a 60-minute evaluation, with your Aetna cost verified before it happens