PsychBright Health treats adults across San Diego County by telehealth. Our psychiatrists are licensed in California and see San Diego patients by video, for the first evaluation and for every appointment after it. Appointments are usually available within the same week.
This page covers how that works, what we treat, where to go if you need help today rather than at an appointment, and how to start.
If someone is in immediate danger, call 911.
For a mental health crisis in San Diego County, call or text 988, or call the county’s Access and Crisis Line at 888-724-7240. San Diego County Behavioral Health Services operates the line 24 hours a day, seven days a week, free of charge, with interpretation available in more than 200 languages.
One thing about 988 in San Diego is worth knowing before you need it. The county routes most cell phone calls by your approximate location at the time of the call, so a call placed inside the county generally reaches the local Access and Crisis Line. Calls from a landline, and calls from the few carriers that have not adopted location-based routing, are connected on your area code instead. The San Diego codes are 619, 858, 760 and 442. If your phone still carries a number from somewhere else, 988 may connect you to a crisis center in another region, and dialing 888-724-7240 directly avoids that.
San Diego County also operates Mobile Crisis Response Teams, which will come to you anywhere in the county, at any hour. A team is a mental health clinician, a case manager and a peer support specialist, and does not include law enforcement. You request one through 988 or the Access and Crisis Line rather than calling the team directly. The county notes that these teams cannot respond where there are threats of violence or a medical emergency.
If someone needs hospital-level care, the San Diego County Psychiatric Hospital at 3853 Rosecrans Street is open 24 hours a day for adults 18 and over, accepts walk-ins, and provides services regardless of whether a person has insurance.
We are an outpatient practice and we are not a crisis service. If any of the above describes your situation today, use those numbers first and come to us for ongoing care afterward.
The practical problem in San Diego is rarely that no psychiatrist exists. It is that the one taking new patients, in network with your plan, and available this month is hard to find, and the search often ends in a waitlist.
Telehealth changes which psychiatrists are available to you. A California license covers the whole state, so a San Diego resident is not limited to the practices within driving distance of their neighborhood. There is no commute to Hillcrest or Kearny Mesa attached to every follow-up, which matters most for medication management, where appointments are short, regular, and easy to abandon when each one costs an afternoon.
What does not change: the evaluation, the prescribing, the follow-up schedule and the clinical standard are the same as they would be in a room. Video is the delivery, not a lighter version of the care.
We are a psychiatry practice, which means diagnosis and medication management rather than talk therapy. Many patients see a therapist as well, and we coordinate with them. Where someone would be better served by therapy we do not provide, we say so and refer.
Each of those links to what the evaluation and treatment actually involve. ADHD and substance use have their own San Diego pages; the rest are statewide.
We treat adults 18 and over. We do not see children or adolescents, and we can point you toward services that do.
Because care is delivered by video, we see patients anywhere in San Diego County. That includes all eighteen incorporated cities: Carlsbad, Chula Vista, Coronado, Del Mar, El Cajon, Encinitas, Escondido, Imperial Beach, La Mesa, Lemon Grove, National City, Oceanside, Poway, San Diego, San Marcos, Santee, Solana Beach and Vista, along with the unincorporated communities between them.
Within the city itself, patients come from across the community planning areas, among them Carmel Valley, City Heights, Clairemont Mesa, the College Area, Downtown, Kearny Mesa, La Jolla, Linda Vista, Mira Mesa, Mission Valley, Navajo, North Park, Ocean Beach, Pacific Beach, Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Penasquitos, Serra Mesa, Tierrasanta, University and Uptown.
Where you are in the county makes no difference to availability. A patient in Oceanside and a patient in Chula Vista are offered the same appointment times.
The first appointment is a full psychiatric evaluation and runs longer than the visits that follow. It covers your history, current symptoms, anything you have tried before and how it went, your medical conditions and any other medications you take. You will be asked about family history, because a great deal of psychiatric prescribing turns on what has worked for relatives.
You leave the first appointment with a working diagnosis, a plan, and a specific follow-up. If medication is part of the plan, it is sent to the pharmacy you choose. If it is not, we say that too.
Follow-ups are shorter and more frequent at the start, while a medication is being adjusted, then space out once things are stable. How quickly that happens depends on the medication; several weeks is normal before the full effect of an antidepressant can be judged.
We are in network with most major commercial plans and with Medicare. Our insurance page lists the plans we accept by name. We do not accept Medi-Cal. If you are covered by Medi-Cal, San Diego County Behavioral Health Services is the right starting point and the Access and Crisis Line at 888-724-7240 can direct you.
Usually not. Most commercial plans let you book a psychiatrist directly, and you can request an appointment with us without going through a primary care doctor first. Some HMO plans do require a referral, so it is worth checking your own plan. If you are not sure, call us and we will check it with you before your first appointment.
No. San Diego patients are seen by video for the evaluation and for every follow-up. If something comes up that genuinely needs an in-person assessment, such as a physical examination or lab work, we will tell you and help you arrange it locally rather than have you travel to us.
Three questions settle most of it. Are they taking new patients, and when is the first appointment actually available rather than in theory. Are they in network with your plan, which is worth confirming with the practice rather than from a directory listing. And do they treat what you are coming in for, since psychiatry has sub-areas and not every practice covers all of them. Reviews are the weakest of the signals, because they mostly measure how someone felt about the front desk.
By most plans we work with, yes, and on the same basis as an in-person visit. Coverage is set by your plan rather than by us, so the reliable answer comes from checking your specific policy. We verify benefits before the first appointment so you know the cost in advance.
Telehealth is the general term for clinical care delivered remotely, in any specialty. Telepsychiatry is the psychiatric version of it: evaluation, diagnosis and medication management by video with a psychiatrist. The words are often used interchangeably, including by insurers.
Evaluation, diagnosis, medication management and follow-up all work by video, and that covers most outpatient psychiatric care. What does not is anything needing a physical examination, lab draws done in the room, or a level of supervision that outpatient care cannot provide. If you need a higher level of care than we can give, telling you that is part of the evaluation.
Appointments are usually available within the same week. If you are in crisis, do not wait for an appointment: call or text 988, or the Access and Crisis Line at 888-724-7240, both of which are staffed around the clock.
Request an appointment online or call to speak to someone about availability and your insurance. Tell us what you are dealing with and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right practice for it.
