Bell Gardens, California
Psychiatric Care for Bell Gardens
Twelve and a half miles down the 710, about twenty-four minutes. Evaluation, diagnosis and medication management, with an honest answer about coverage first.
In short
Psychiatric care for Bell Gardens
Bell Gardens is under thirteen miles from our psychiatric office, about twenty-four minutes on the 710. We provide evaluation, diagnosis and medication management rather than counselling. Around thirty-five percent of working-age residents hold commercial insurance we contract with, and we do not currently bill Medi-Cal, so please read the coverage section before booking.
- Our office
- 3646 Long Beach Blvd # 205, Long Beach, CA 90807
- Hours
- Mon–Fri · 8 AM–6 PM (Pacific)
- Phone
- (818) 286-3862
Telehealth available across California, with new locations coming to Northern California.
What we do
Psychiatric care for Bell Gardens patients
We are a psychiatric practice, not a therapy group and not a clinic directory. That means diagnosis, medication, and someone who keeps track of how you are actually doing over time.
Psychiatry Services
Comprehensive psychiatric care — diagnosis, treatment planning, and ongoing management led by a board-certified provider.
Medication Management
Careful prescribing, monitoring, and adjustment of psychiatric medications to maximize benefit and minimize side effects.
Psychiatric Evaluation
A thorough first assessment to understand your history and symptoms and build an accurate diagnosis and plan.
What a first visit looks like
A full psychiatric evaluation runs about an hour. We go through what brought you in, your history, what you have tried before and how it went, physical health and medications, and what you want to be different. You leave with a working diagnosis where one is clear, a plan, and a follow-up booked — not a referral to somewhere else.
Follow-ups are shorter, usually every few weeks at first and further apart once things are steady. Medication changes are made deliberately, one at a time, so it stays possible to tell what is working.
In person or by video, from Bell Gardens
Both are real options and the clinical care is the same. Video visits are secure and available anywhere in California, which for most people makes the first appointment in person and the routine follow-ups from home or on a work break.
If getting here is the thing standing between you and treatment, take the video visit rather than skipping the care. That is what it is for.
Care is provided by our psychiatric team — Irine Achuamang, MSN, PMHNP-BC and Austina Cho, MD.
Paying for care
The coverage answer, before you plan a visit
Usually, yes. We are in network with 19 commercial carriers, including Aetna, Anthem, Beacon Health Options, Carelon, Cigna and others — you can check your own plan below before booking anything. That list includes TRICARE and TriWest, so service members, veterans and military families are billed like anyone else here.
We do not currently take Medi-Cal managed care. If that is your coverage, we are a self-pay option rather than a covered visit, and it is better to know that now than at the front desk. Self-pay is $250 for a 60-minute initial psychiatric evaluation and $150 for a 30-minute follow-up visit, and there is a sliding scale — please ask.
What that looks like in Bell Gardens
Local coverage data, so you can see roughly where you fall before you call:
- Among Bell Gardens adults aged 19 to 64, 32.4 percent hold employer-based coverage only and 3.0 percent buy a plan directly, putting 35.4 percent on commercial insurance. source
- In the same age band 36.9 percent of Bell Gardens residents rely on Medi-Cal or another means-tested public program, more than are on a commercial plan, and 22.2 percent have no coverage at all. source
- Bell Gardens has a population of 38,229 and a median household income of $62,298. source
In-network with your insurance
We're in-network with most major plans, so care stays affordable. Not sure about yours? Verify your coverage in about a minute — or we'll gladly check it for you.
No card to hand? Just leave your name and number — tick “look it up for me” and we'll do the checking. Self-pay & sliding-scale options are also available.
Plans we accept
Paying out of pocket?
Self-pay ratesClear, upfront self-pay rates — no surprises, no fine print. You’ll know the cost before your first visit.
Initial psychiatric evaluation
$250/ 1 hour
Follow-up visit
$150/ 30 min
Sliding-scale options are available — just ask.
About visiting us from Bell Gardens
Bell Gardens packs a little over 38,000 people into 2.459 square miles, about 15,500 to the square mile, and one small detail gives away what that density does to a city. The Recreation and Community Services Department works out of 8000 Park Lane, and it lists separate intake numbers for individual parks: one line for Veterans Park on Loveland Street, another for Marlow Park. In a city this tight, the parks are close enough to walk between and busy enough to each need their own phone. That is a place where public space is genuinely used, not decorative.
We will come back to that. First, the part of this page most people here need, which is money. Roughly 36.9 percent of working-age residents in Bell Gardens are covered by Medi-Cal or another means-tested program, and 35.4 percent hold commercial insurance. More people are on Medi-Cal than on a commercial plan. A further 22.2 percent, better than one in five, have no coverage at all. We do not currently bill Medi-Cal. That is a present-tense answer tied to how the clinic grows rather than a permanent position, and we would rather you read it here than find it out on a booking call.
So the practical picture splits three ways. If you hold commercial insurance, we contract with those plans and the process is unremarkable. If you are uninsured, ask about self-pay at our published rates, where a sliding scale sometimes makes an evaluation and an inexpensive ongoing medication workable, and we will tell you honestly and quickly when it does not. If you are on Medi-Cal, the county line on (800) 854-7771 answers at any hour and Bell Gardens sits inside Service Area 7. That is a functioning route to care, offered as one, not as a polite way to end the conversation.
The drive is short and has a small quirk worth knowing. From City Hall on South Garfield Avenue the 710 measured 12.7 miles and about 24 minutes on a Wednesday around midday. Google also offered a shorter road, dropping onto North Long Beach Boulevard for 11.9 miles, and it takes a minute longer at about 25. Not much of a penalty at midday, but the surface street is the one that will punish you at five in the afternoon, so the freeway is the safer default if your appointment sits anywhere near a peak. The third option, Florence Place onto the freeway, ran 14.0 miles and about 27 minutes. None of these were sampled at peak.
Without a car it is harder here than the map suggests. No Metro rail station stands inside Bell Gardens. The nearest is Lakewood Blvd Station, almost four miles away, and it is worth saying plainly that it is not in the city its name implies: it sits inside Downey. It is on the C Line, which does not serve this stretch of Long Beach, so getting to us by rail means changing trains and a good deal of extra time. Montebello Bus Lines does reach Bell Gardens, one of thirteen communities on a network running from Alhambra to Whittier, and Long Beach is not among them. If you do not drive, the video appointment is not a consolation prize here. It is the option that actually works.
What we provide is psychiatry in the narrow sense: an evaluation that ends in a working diagnosis, medication chosen carefully and then genuinely monitored, and follow-up that changes when something is not working. We are not a counselling service and we do not offer weekly therapy. When therapy is the half you need and we cannot supply it, you will hear that at the first appointment.
Three things bring people to us most often from this part of the county. Depression that has run so long it has stopped feeling like an illness and started feeling like a personality. The delayed weight of something that happened years ago, which people hesitate to raise because they assume too much time has passed. And sleep that has been broken for so long it has been filed under normal. That last one is worth naming first rather than last, because poor sleep is not merely a symptom sitting alongside the others. It feeds them, and treating it properly often moves everything else.
If the coverage answer above rules us out for you today, we would rather you leave this page with the county number than with nothing. If it does not, the assessment is about an hour, it is worth doing in the room, and the follow-ups after it belong on video.
In a crisis, 988 answers by call or text at any hour, and the county line is (800) 854-7771.
Getting here
Travelling from Bell Gardens
Distances and times below are Google's, timed on a weekday at the hour each route note states, in the traffic it labels usual for that route. Allow longer at the peaks each note says were not sampled.
By car
From Bell Gardens City Hall on South Garfield Avenue the quickest route was 12.7 miles and about 24 minutes on the 710, labelled fastest now due to traffic conditions, sampled at roughly 12.11pm on Wednesday 9 September 2026. The morning and evening peaks were not sampled.
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The shortest way was not the quickest. Dropping onto North Long Beach Boulevard cut the distance to 11.9 miles and added a minute, at about 25, while Florence Place onto the 710 ran 14.0 miles and about 27 minutes.
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By transit
Bell Gardens has no Metro rail station inside its city limits. The nearest is Lakewood Blvd Station on the C Line, about 3.8 straight-line miles from City Hall, and despite its name it stands inside the City of Downey.
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The C Line does not run to this part of Long Beach, so reaching the office from Lakewood Blvd Station means changing lines rather than staying on one train.
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Bell Gardens is one of the thirteen communities served by Montebello Bus Lines, a municipal operator whose network covers Alhambra through to Whittier but does not extend to Long Beach.
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Local
Other resources in Bell Gardens
These are listed because they are useful. We have no referral arrangement with any of them.
Bell Gardens is one of the communities named in Service Area 7 of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health.
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The county's mental health help line answers on (800) 854-7771 at any hour and can arrange service referrals or a crisis assessment.
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Dialing or texting 988 connects to the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline nationwide.
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Related
Reading that may help before a first appointment
Frequently asked questions
More people here are on Medi-Cal than on a commercial plan. Where does that leave me?
Honestly, outside what we can bill today, and you should know that before you call rather than after. We do not currently contract with Medi-Cal. It is a present-tense position that may change as the clinic grows, not a permanent refusal. The county help line on (800) 854-7771 answers around the clock and Bell Gardens is in Service Area 7, which is a genuine route.
I am uninsured. Is there any point calling you?
Yes, so long as you raise it first. Better than one in five working-age people in this city are uninsured, so it is an ordinary question here and not an awkward one. Self-pay at published rates with a sliding scale suits some situations, especially an evaluation followed by a medication that is cheap to keep taking. Where it does not suit, we say so at once.
How long is the drive, and which way?
About 24 minutes on the 710, 12.7 miles from City Hall, in a Wednesday midday sample. There is a shorter option that is not faster: dropping onto North Long Beach Boulevard saves most of a mile and costs you a minute. Florence Place onto the freeway was the slowest of the three at about 27. We did not sample rush hour.
Is there any way here by train?
Not a straightforward one. No Metro rail station sits inside Bell Gardens, and the closest, Lakewood Blvd Station, is nearly four miles off and is actually in Downey rather than in the city its name suggests. It is on the C Line, which does not come to this stretch of Long Beach, so you would be changing trains. For most people here the honest options are the freeway or video.
I sleep badly and have for years. Is that worth an appointment on its own?
Yes. Long-running insomnia is treated as a side issue far too often, when it is frequently both a symptom and an engine. It keeps depression going, it sharpens anxiety, and it is one of the things that most reliably improves when the underlying picture is treated properly. Bring it up first rather than mentioning it as you leave.
Something happened years ago and I still react to it. Is it too late?
No. Trauma responses do not have an expiry date, and neither does treatment for them. People often wait because the event is long past and they assume the window closed, or because the reaction feels disproportionate to them now. Neither is a reason to leave it. The evaluation is where we work out what is actually driving the response.
Arranging a first visit from Bell Gardens
Ask for a time online and someone will confirm it. The 710 brings you here, and video works if it does not.