Coverage: UnitedHealthcare in California
Medication management in California, in network with UnitedHealthcare.
Californians insured by UnitedHealthcare can be seen here for psychiatric medication management, by secure telehealth, anywhere in the state. Your plan materials may name Optum for behavioral health; Optum administers that benefit for many UnitedHealthcare plans, and this practice is in network with UnitedHealthcare and Optum. Coverage is verified, and your exact cost stated, before the first visit.
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
The UnitedHealthcare and Optum arrangement
Large insurers split their work across sister companies, and patients end up holding both names. For mental health care under UnitedHealthcare, the second name is usually Optum. This practice is contracted under both.
Two names, one benefit
UnitedHealthcare issues the plan; Optum, its sister company, administers behavioral health for many of those plans. A directory listing under Optum and a card that says UnitedHealthcare describe the same route into care here.
Verified before the first visit
At booking, your plan is checked against the practice's contract and your copay or deductible position is stated before you are seen. If verification fails, you are told so, and the published self-pay rates are the alternative, stated in the open.
Settled before the first statement
Typically the cost is a copay between $0 and $40. Where a plan puts a deductible ahead of specialist visits, the early appointments bill at the contracted rate until the deductible is met, then the copay takes over. Verification establishes which pattern your plan uses and gives you the figure before the first appointment.
Adjustments you can actually read
When something changes in your regimen, it changes one medicine at a time, with symptom and sleep measures kept at every visit. Labs are drawn at any lab near you when a decision needs them, so an effect can be tied to its cause instead of guessed at.
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 California
One prescriber, reachable from anywhere in California
California is too big for one waiting room, and this practice does not ask it to be. Your appointments happen by secure video from your own address, with the same prescriber whether you are in the North State or the Imperial Valley. When an in-person visit is required, by federal or DEA rules, the practice uses its San Francisco office at 220 Montgomery St #600, and the visit is set up with you ahead of time. Your prescriber is Karel Winner, a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner with a Doctor of Nursing Practice from Vanderbilt University, who also holds a graduate degree in education from Vanderbilt University. Medicare is also accepted in California.
How it starts
How it starts
The appointment is the third thing that happens. The check and the number come first.
Book a time
Choose a time online or call (800) 303-3221. The booking form asks for your insurance details, and those details are what the coverage check runs on.
Hear the number first
Your UnitedHealthcare or Optum coverage is confirmed, and your copay or deductible position is stated before the visit. The figure quoted is the figure charged.
The full first hour
The first appointment runs the full 60 minutes: your history, your health, every medication you have tried, and a plan with a target. Follow-up Appointments run 30 minutes and measure whether the plan is earning its keep.
Cost and coverage
What it costs, and what your plan covers
Care starts with a 60-minute Comprehensive Initial Appointment at $350, and Follow-up Appointments run 30 minutes at $250 each. Insurance usually carries most of that: copays are typically $0 to $40, and your coverage and your exact cost are verified before your first visit, so the figure is settled before anything is scheduled on its strength. 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. Visits are 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, UnitedHealthcare in Texas, UnitedHealthcare in New York. Other plans in California: Aetna in California, Cigna in California, Blue Cross Blue Shield in California. The full picture of what medication care costs is on the visits and fees page.
“I knew what each visit would cost before I booked the first one.”
Start with a 60-minute evaluation, your UnitedHealthcare cost stated first