Compton, California
Psychiatric Care for Compton
One boulevard, two ways down it. Psychiatric evaluation and medication management for Compton, at our Long Beach Blvd office or by secure video.
In short
Psychiatric care for Compton
Compton and our office share Long Beach Boulevard, about twenty minutes apart by car. By bus it is Metro's Line 60 down the boulevard to Artesia Station, then Long Beach Transit's Route 51. Three in ten working-age residents are on Medi-Cal, which we do not currently bill, so that answer comes before the directions.
- 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 Compton 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 Compton
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 Medi-Cal gap, and what fills it
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 Compton
Local coverage data, so you can see roughly where you fall before you call:
- Among Compton adults aged 19 to 64, 30.9 percent rely on Medi-Cal or another means-tested public program, three in ten, and a further 17.8 percent have no coverage at all. source
- In the same age band 40.3 percent hold employer-based coverage only and 3.9 percent buy their own plan, putting 44.3 percent of working-age Compton on commercial insurance. source
- Compton has a population of 92,698 and a median household income of $78,465. 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 Compton
Start with the number that decides things. In Compton, 30.9 percent of working-age adults are covered by Medi-Cal or a similar means-tested program, three in ten, and another 17.8 percent have no coverage at all. We contract with commercial insurance and we take self-pay with a sliding scale. We do not currently bill Medi-Cal managed care. That sentence excludes nearly half of working-age Compton from a covered visit with us, and it belongs at the top of the page rather than the bottom. If it describes you, the county’s own mental health department covers this part of Los Angeles, and we have no arrangement with it beyond thinking you should know it exists.
For the 44.3 percent on commercial plans, the practical facts are unusually good, because Compton and our office are on the same road. Long Beach Boulevard runs south from Compton Boulevard, through Rosecrans and Alondra, across the city line and past our door. Metro’s Line 60 runs that boulevard, and its published route ends at Artesia Station. That is where you change: Long Beach Transit’s Route 51 picks up the same boulevard and carries on past the office. Two buses, one street, no detours. Metro’s own schedule data does show ten Line 60 trips a day running the whole length to the Bixby Road and Wardlow Road stops, but all ten pass between about 12.20am and 4.16am, on the hours when the A Line is shut. They are a night service, and we would rather say so than let you plan a morning appointment around them.
The train is the other option and Compton has two stations on it. Compton Station and Artesia Station are both A Line stops inside the city. From Artesia the Route 51 bus runs down Long Beach Boulevard past us, so the rail trip is one train and one bus. It is rare for the transit directions on one of these pages to be this simple, and it is worth saying because transit is usually the part that reads as an apology.
Driving, Google offered three routes when we checked at three on a weekday afternoon and they all agreed. From City Hall on Willowbrook Avenue it is 6.7 miles and about 20 minutes on surface streets by Susana Road, 6.2 miles and about 21 minutes by Santa Fe Avenue and Long Beach Boulevard, which Google marked as heavy traffic as usual, or 8.4 miles and about 20 minutes on the 710. Pick by preference. The morning and evening peaks were not sampled.
What we do once you are here is psychiatric care in the specific sense. A first visit is a full evaluation of about an hour, ending in a working diagnosis where one is clear and a plan. Follow-ups adjust medication deliberately, one change at a time, so it stays possible to tell what is working. The conditions we see most from this direction are depression that has settled in, the aftermath of things that happened and were never dealt with, and attention problems that were never named at school and are now costing someone a job. Adult ADHD can be diagnosed for the first time in adulthood, and it often is.
Compton calls itself the Hub City because it sits at nearly the exact geographical centre of Los Angeles County, and the settlers who arrived in 1867 had to make a three-day trip to the mountains near Pasadena for firewood. The Heritage House they built in 1869 is the oldest house in the city and now a state landmark. We mention it for one reason. Getting to a psychiatrist from here should not be a three-day trip, and it is not. It is one boulevard, twenty minutes, and the honest coverage answer above.
If cost is the obstacle, ask about the sliding scale before you decide we are not an option. In crisis, 988 answers by call or text at any hour. The county mental health line is (800) 854-7771.
Getting here
Travelling from Compton
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 Compton City Hall on Willowbrook Avenue the office is 6.7 miles and about 20 minutes on surface streets by Susana Road, timed at three on a weekday afternoon when Google marked it fastest because of traffic conditions. Morning and evening peaks were not sampled.
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The alternatives in the same afternoon sample were within a minute of each other, 6.2 miles and about 21 minutes by Santa Fe Avenue and Long Beach Boulevard, which Google labelled heavy traffic as usual, or 8.4 miles and about 20 minutes on the 710.
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By transit
Two A Line stations sit inside Compton, Compton Station and Artesia Station. From Artesia Station, Long Beach Transit's Route 51 runs down Long Beach Boulevard past the office, so the rail trip is one train and one bus.
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Metro's Line 60 runs Long Beach Boulevard through Compton, and its published route ends at Artesia Station. Ten of its 256 weekday trips carry on to the Bixby Road and Wardlow Road stops near the office, and every one of those ten passes between about 12.20am and 4.16am, when the A Line is not running. There is no daytime through service.
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Long Beach Transit's Route 51 is the Long Beach Boulevard route, running between downtown Long Beach and Artesia Station with timepoints at Willow and Del Amo, the stretch the office sits on.
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Local
Other resources in Compton
These are listed because they are useful. We have no referral arrangement with any of them.
Compton is one of the communities served by Service Area 6 of the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health.
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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.
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Dialing or texting 988 connects to the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline nationwide.
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Related
What Compton patients read next
Frequently asked questions
Can I get to you from Compton without a car?
Yes, on one street, but it is two buses rather than one. Metro's Line 60 runs Long Beach Boulevard through Compton and ends at Artesia Station, where Long Beach Transit's Route 51 picks up the same boulevard and carries on past our door. By train, either A Line station in Compton to Artesia, then the 51. Ten Line 60 trips a day do run the whole way through, but they all pass between about half past midnight and a quarter past four in the morning, so they are no use for an appointment.
Which of the three routes should I take?
Whichever you prefer. In our weekday afternoon sample the surface-street route by Susana Road, the Santa Fe and Long Beach Boulevard route, and the 710 were all within a minute of twenty. Google marked the Long Beach Boulevard option as heavy traffic as usual, so if you dislike stop-and-go, take the 710 and accept the extra two miles.
Three in ten people here are on Medi-Cal. Are you any use to us?
For that three in ten, not as a covered visit. We do not currently bill Medi-Cal managed care, and we would rather say so here than after you have driven down. Self-pay with a sliding scale is available. For the 44 percent on commercial plans, most of which we contract with, we are an ordinary in-network psychiatric practice.
Is the county mental health service the same thing as you?
No. Los Angeles County runs its own Department of Mental Health, and Compton falls within its Service Area 6. We have no arrangement with the county and mention it because it exists. If Medi-Cal is your coverage, the county line at (800) 854-7771 is the better first call, because it can point you to care that bills your plan.
Can ADHD be diagnosed for the first time as an adult?
Yes, and it often is. Many adults were never assessed at school and only notice the pattern when work demands more organisation than they can supply. A proper evaluation looks at history as well as the present, rules out the things that mimic it, and produces a diagnosis you can act on rather than a label.
What if I start with you and it turns out I need therapy instead?
Then we say so at the first visit. We are a psychiatric practice and we do not run weekly therapy. When the honest answer is that talking treatment is the missing piece, or the whole piece, we tell you where to look rather than keep you on medication that is not the point.
Same boulevard, twenty minutes
Request a time online, or call. A real person confirms every appointment, on Long Beach Boulevard or by secure video.