Carson, California
Psychiatric Care for Carson Patients
Nine minutes down the 405 — psychiatric evaluation and medication management for Carson residents, at our Long Beach office or by secure video.
In short
Psychiatric care for Carson
Carson sits about five miles west of our psychiatric office, roughly nine minutes down the 405. We provide psychiatric evaluation, diagnosis and ongoing medication management in person on Long Beach Boulevard, or by secure video across California. Two Long Beach Transit routes end at Cal State Dominguez Hills, and a third links Carson Street to the A Line.
- 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 Carson 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 Carson
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
Most Carson plans, but not all
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 Carson
Local coverage data, so you can see roughly where you fall before you call:
- Among Carson adults aged 19 to 64, 56.0 percent hold employer-based coverage only and 7.4 percent buy their own plan, putting 63.4 percent on commercial insurance. source
- In the same age band 18.0 percent of Carson residents rely on Medi-Cal or another means-tested public program and 9.3 percent report no coverage. source
- Carson has a population of 92,871 and a median household income of $108,703, making it the largest of the cities immediately west of us. source
- About 2,899 Carson residents are veterans, 3.9 percent of civilian adults. 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 Carson
A good share of what we see from Carson arrives early — first episodes rather than long histories. That is what a city with a large university population produces: panic and anxiety showing up in the late teens and twenties, attention problems that only became problems once the work got harder, first depressive episodes, sleep that collapsed during a hard term and never recovered. Early is the best time to be assessed properly, because a first episode treated well is a very different trajectory from a fourth one treated late.
What we provide is psychiatric care — a full evaluation, a diagnosis where the picture supports one, medication managed carefully, and follow-up that adjusts rather than repeats. Where the answer is therapy we will say so and help you find it, but if there is a medication question in your situation this is the right place to have it answered.
Nine minutes is what makes that workable. Carson City Hall is a little over five miles from us down the 405, and what is striking is how little the alternatives cost: Avalon Boulevard, or leaving the freeway early onto Long Beach Boulevard, both land within a minute of it. On longer runs of the same freeway a bad afternoon can swallow the appointment; here it does not. For a student or a shift worker that means a review can sit inside a gap in the day rather than consuming the whole of it.
Transit is unusually workable too. Two Long Beach Transit routes — the 1 from West Del Amo Boulevard and the 2 from the Avalon and Central corridors — terminate at Cal State Dominguez Hills, putting a good part of the city within one ride of a hub, and Route 4 ties West Carson Street to Del Amo Station on the A Line. None of that is a single-seat ride to our door, but it is a genuinely usable network, and it is the reason we do not simply tell Carson patients to drive.
On coverage, Carson sits in the middle. Just under two thirds of working-age residents hold commercial insurance of the kind we contract with; close to one in five is on Medi-Cal and about nine percent have no coverage at all. We do not contract with any Medi-Cal managed-care plan, so for a meaningful slice of the city we are a self-pay option with a sliding scale rather than a covered visit. In a city of ninety-three thousand that is thousands of people, and saying it plainly matters more here than it would somewhere small.
One honest note about how this site describes itself. Carson is not on the published list of in-person service areas, which names Long Beach, Signal Hill, Lakewood, Bellflower and Seal Beach. That is a description of where we advertise rather than a rule about who we see — at nine minutes away Carson is closer to this office than two of the cities on that list. We would rather leave the mismatch visible than quietly paper over it.
About 2,899 Carson residents are veterans, near four percent of civilian adults, and TRICARE and TriWest are both on the list of plans we contract with. PTSD and trauma are already among the commonest reasons people come to us from this direction. Those are two separate observations rather than one explaining the other, but the practical upshot is the same: if you served and something has not settled since, the assessment is available here on your own coverage.
If you are a student, or the parent of one, and something has changed this term, an evaluation is an hour well spent. In crisis, 988 answers by call or text, and the county line is (800) 854-7771.
Getting here
Travelling from Carson
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 Carson City Hall on East Carson Street the office is 5.2 miles and about 9 minutes via I-405 south. Timed on a weekday evening. Morning and afternoon peaks were not sampled.
google.comchecked
The two alternatives are barely slower — 5.9 miles by South Avalon Boulevard onto the 405, or 5.7 miles leaving the freeway earlier onto Long Beach Boulevard — both about 10 minutes. Timed on a weekday evening. Morning and afternoon peaks were not sampled.
google.comchecked
By transit
Long Beach Transit Routes 1 and 2 both terminate at Cal State Dominguez Hills in Carson, coming in from West Del Amo Boulevard and from the Avalon and Central corridors respectively.
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Long Beach Transit Route 4 links West Carson Street to Del Amo Station, and Routes 101 and 103 run the Carson Street corridor east toward Lakewood Center.
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Del Amo Station on the Metro A Line is the closest rail stop to Carson, sitting just north-west of the city.
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Local
Other resources in Carson
These are listed because they are useful. We have no referral arrangement with any of them.
Carson is served by the Los Angeles County health and mental health systems rather than by a city department of its own.
dmh.lacounty.govchecked
The county's mental health help line answers at (800) 854-7771 every hour of every day and can arrange service referrals or a crisis assessment.
dmh.lacounty.govchecked
Dialing or texting 988 connects to the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline nationwide.
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Related
What brings Carson patients in
Frequently asked questions
How long does it actually take to get here from Carson?
Around nine minutes for the 5.2 miles from City Hall, down the 405. What is striking is how little the alternatives cost you — going by Avalon Boulevard or leaving the freeway early onto Long Beach Boulevard both come in around ten. Unlike longer trips on the same freeway, a bad stretch of 405 here does not wreck your afternoon.
Can I get to you from Carson on public transport?
More easily than from most places west of us. Long Beach Transit Routes 1 and 2 both end at Cal State Dominguez Hills, Route 4 connects West Carson Street to Del Amo Station on the A Line, and Routes 101 and 103 work the Carson Street corridor. Del Amo is the nearest rail stop.
Do you see patients from Carson?
Yes. Carson is not one of the cities listed as an in-person service area on this site, which is a description of where we advertise rather than a limit on who we see — at nine minutes away it is one of the shortest trips to our door from any neighbouring city.
I have been told I have PTSD. Is medication the answer?
Sometimes part of it, rarely all of it. An evaluation is worth having because it establishes what is actually going on, whether that is PTSD, depression, both, or something that has been mislabelled along the way. Sleep and hyperarousal often respond to medication while the rest needs therapy, and where therapy is the missing piece we will say so.
What is the difference between trauma and PTSD?
Trauma is the experience; PTSD is a specific diagnosis with criteria and a duration attached. Most people who go through something traumatic do not develop PTSD, and being told you do not meet the criteria is not being told that nothing happened to you. The distinction matters mainly because it changes what treatment is likely to help.
Is nine minutes really enough to fit this into a lunch break?
For a follow-up, usually. What makes Carson unusual is how little the alternatives cost you: Avalon Boulevard, or leaving the freeway early onto Long Beach Boulevard, both land within a minute of the 405 route, so a bad stretch of traffic does not wreck the plan. A first evaluation runs about an hour and needs more room than a lunch break allows.
Nine minutes down the 405
Request a time online. A real person confirms every appointment, and the first one runs about an hour.