Policies

Payment

I see patients as an out of network provider which means you pay for each session at the time of service and I will provide a one page billing sheet which you may submit to your insurance company for reimbursement.

Fees

Fee for Service

Initial Visit:

60 minutes - $550

Follow up visits:

50 minutes - $325
25 minutes - $250

Please see Request an Appointment page for more information.

General Policies

I am licensed in Arizona and able to serve Arizona residents.
I serve adults over 18, and each person must contact me themself. Please don't have a family member contact me. I want to communicate directly with you.
I do not take any insurance or Medicare.
I don’t prescribe any benzos (Xanax, Valium) nor do I take over prescribing these when other doctors refuse to prescribe.
All prescriptions and refills are managed within an office visit. There are no refills without an office visit.
Together we will discuss your refills during an office visit, and we will plan ahead so that you don't run out of anything before your next visit
No in-person visits. I offer telepsychiatry, which is easy, confidential and saves gas, thus protecting the planet and your privacy.
For my current rates, please see bottom of this page.
I have no answering service and no office staff.
I do not provide 24 hr emergency care, only outpatient psychiatry.
I do not run a suicide hotline. I run a small, independent, patient-centered low-overhead, psychiatry micro-practice.
I am a strong advocate for physician self-care, and I practice this myself. I turn off my phone at night so I can sleep. I believe all human beings deserve to have time to rest, relax and recharge.
If you are having a psychiatric emergency and need immediate help, please contact the National suicide hotline. https://988lifeline.org or call 988.
If you are experiencing a mental health crisis in Pima County, please contact the Crisis Response Center at (520)622-6000.

General Policies

Will I be charged for phone calls and missed appointments?

I charge for phone calls lasting longer than five minutes as well as for extra paperwork one requests me to fill out.

If you miss an appointment you will still be charged a $100 no-show or late cancelation fee. By calling 24 hours in advance this can be avoided. Folks who still have trouble keeping their appointments or being fully personally invested in their treatment plan will be given 30 days notice by me, and then asked to seek their care elsewhere. Thank you for understanding this policy.

Hablas Español?

Si. Aunque mi Español no es perfecto, trato de comunicar contigo en el idioma que Usted prefiere.

I would like to bring a family member or friend to my appointment, is this okay?

Yes. Please keep in mind that these sessions often require more time than they would otherwise and consider scheduling accordingly.

Prescribing Medication

No refills will be given without a visit. Patients who are established with me may be given paper scripts for several months worth of medication after they have demonstrated an ability to remain stable on what they are taking and an ability to engage proactively in their care plan.

If there is an emergency and you cannot make it in and still need a refill, I will selectively refill one week’s worth of scripts and you will be charged for an office visit which insurance will not cover.

Why don't you provide Xanax, conversion therapy, or 24 hour crisis counseling?

The reason why I do not prescribe Xanax or similar medications in the benzodiazepine family, otherwise know as sedative hypnotics or anxiolytics, is that for routine use, these are extremely habit forming and it has been my experience that they create more problems than they solve. For PTSD, panic disorder, and generalized anxiety disorders there are many more effective and sustainable treatments available. I am happy to discuss these if you wish. The most recent evidence supports psychotherapy and an antidepressant class called SSRI’s for the effective treatment of anxiety disorders and PTSD. For some people SSRI's are not that great, but there are many other non-benzo medications and behavioral therapy techniques we can use.

Conversion "therapy" is an attempt to turn a person who has homosexual "urges" into a straight person. I don't practice this because I believe it's harmful. Conversion "therapy" is contraindicated and not considered standard of care by the American Psychiatric Association. You may find some providers still willing to offer this, but I am not one of them. My position on homosexuality is that it is a normal variant of the human sexuality spectrum.

Some folks wonder why I don't offer crisis counseling for everybody. There are 24 hour crisis counseling services available in most communities which can be accessed by calling 911 and requesting a mobile crisis unit for evaluation or a severe imminent mental health crisis. There is only one Dr Goldman (one Doctor period) at Whole Human Psychiatry, and to do my best work for my identified patients I make myself available for SCHEDULED appointments only. If I were to be instantly available at all hours by phone, I would soon become sleep deprived and put myself into a mental health crisis of my own. If you are having a life threatening emergency that cannot wait for the next available office or tele-psych appointment with me please call 911, state that you are having a mental health crisis and ask for help, or take yourself physically to the nearest full service hospital.

Diet, Exercise, & Sleep

Why are you asking me about my diet, exercise, and sleep habits? What do these have to do with mental health?

An increasing numbers of credible scientific studies point to the importance of overall physical wellness to support mental health. This makes sense when you consider that the brain is the seat of human cognitive function and is tied in with other systems of the body including the body’s systemic nervous system (notably the autonomic nervous system which contains the fight/flight sympathetic subsystem; the rest/digest parasympathetic nervous system; and the newly discovered enteric nervous system). Our emotions exist in our heads, our hearts and our guts thus making the mind-body connection incontrovertible.

Suicide

What should I do if I'm feeling suicidal?

First, consider if you are in immediate danger. If so, please drop whatever you are doing and call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. That being said, if you are a health care provider in crisis, please contact me immediately through my wounded healers crisis link here. Please consider the possibility that if you can talk yourself out of suicide now, you may discover there are other options for relief from suffering, that you have not yet considered. I would love to help you discover a different escape route from the overpowering suffering of this moment, toward a more joyful future. You may also want to reach out to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 1-800-273-TALK or www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org. In Pima County, the Crisis Response Center is reachable at (520)301-2400.

First Responders

Physicians, Medical Students, Health Care Providers, First Responders, Neurodiverse, Genderdiverse, Creative Smart and Quirky People.... welcome to whole human psychiatry.

Why is it that you prioritize the care of medical students, residents, physicians, first responders and EMTs, putting these folks ahead of other people on your clinic's waiting list, and ahead of the general public?

The reason is simple. The general public has access to community mental health resources that in theory are available to the healer community (doctors etc.) however we healers face specific obstacles that the general public does not face. These obstacles include scheduling, loss of privacy due to medical insurance, and exposure of our search for mental health conditions subjecting us to uncalled for scrutiny by state licensing boards. For this reason I offer cash-based services for health care individuals who are prepared to pay for their own services with me, including crisis services, in exchange for the freedom to conduct their business with me in an insurance free space. I offer above-and-beyond personalized and highly confidential support, whether this means a sooner-than-usual office visit or phone session, meet in another location where you feel safe to talk, medication if you need it, and self-advocacy strategies to help you stay in the game on your terms wherever possible. I can't guarantee that you will keep your job or not face malpractice nightmares, divorce or other bad outcomes that healers and rescuers are high risk for in our own lives. But I can help you out of shame, secrecy and isolation. I can help you frame your overwhelm in manageable and actionable terms. My underlying goal in the founding of whole human psychiatry is (1) physician suicide prevention and (2) a safe place for the world's super-smart misfits, neurodiverse people, healers, gender-diverse, creative, nerdy and quirky people to find support acceptance and recognition in a judgment free-setting.