FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
We do not process payments from health insurance companies; claims may be submitted to your insurance company for reimbursement to you, as their policy allows. Cedar Park Psychiatry, PLLC, is considered an “Out-of-Network” provider. It is your option whether to seek reimbursement from your insurance company for our appointments. We will provide a “superbills”, when requested, which you can then, in turn, submit to your insurance company.
The decision to seek evaluation and treatment from a mental health professional, such as a psychiatrist, really stems around the level of stress you're having. Often people can experience transient periods of sadness, for example. If this sadness persists and develops into a pervasive feeling of depression, interfering with your enjoyment of life, interfering with your ability to function socially or occupationally, then it is really time to seek professional help and get that evaluated by a psychiatrist. Depression is one example, but certainly persistent symptoms of anxiety, or other kinds of thought patterns or interpersonal situations that are causing a lot of stress, are all additional reasons to see a psychiatrist..
A Psychiatrist is a certified medical professional that specializes in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of mental illness and psychological problems. A Psychiatrist has completed medical school, in addition to at least four years of training in the field. Psychiatrists are not only trained to diagnose and manage mental illness, but are also adept at providing psychotherapy. Certain specializations within Psychiatry require additional years of training and qualification. Within the profession, each Psychiatrist has specific areas of interest and specialization but has the skills to provide treatment from multiple approaches. .
We will meet with you for an extensive interview and psychiatric evaluation in which we will gather some information such as your history, symptoms, and family dynamics. Within this first session together, we will then determine the best plan of action to move forward.
We will not reveal any information regarding what happens within the work that we do together unless you have signed the Authorization to Disclose Information form. In the instance that you are in danger of harming yourself or another, then we are obligated by law to notify the authorities of this.
There are no precise determinations that we can make regarding the length of your treatment. Generally speaking, the longer you have had your mental illness not medically acknowledged, the longer the treatment will take. Certain conditions do not require a lot of time to treat, and others considerably more. Certain mental illnesses require just a couple of visits, and others require life long maintenance. We believe that you should seek treatment as soon as possible, for the best outcome.
Psychiatry is a medical subspecialty that focuses on the assessment and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatry is very focused on helping people with mental disorders achieve recovery and get them back to a full level of functioning. Psychiatry looks at mental illness from the medical standpoint. Just as we look at hypertension or cardiovascular disease, when we look at mental disorders, we're really looking for what the biological underpinnings of this illness are. Psychiatry also borrows very heavily from other fields, especially psychology. Psychology has been very helpful in understanding some of the psychological processes that are part of mental illness. It's also important for psychiatrists to have a good appreciation of culture, history and anthropology because the way we gather our information about a person is through talking to them, so we really need to understand what are those other factors that would be influencing that kind of communication. That's really what makes psychiatry challenging and fun: there are a lot of aspects of the person that we need to pay attention to and really strive to understand.
Well there's actually a significant amount of overlap between psychiatry and psychology. I think the primary distinction would be more from the training aspect. Psychiatrists have completed medical education; they've done a residency that, often in its first year, includes experience in internal medicine, family practice, or neurology. This kind of training gives psychiatrists a medical perspective to the individual. This would allow them to have an understanding of other medical disorders that might manifest themselves with psychiatric symptoms and it also prepares them to be able to prescribe medications. Psychiatry incorporates a lot of the knowledge that has been developed by the field of psychology. Psychology's been very interested in developing the techniques to understand human behavior, both normal and abnormal, and it has really made a big contribution to what psychiatry does
If you find yourself in the midst of an emergency, please immediately call 9-1-1. If you have an urgent situation, call our office, and we will see you as soon as we can.