Adult ADHD telehealth psychiatry across California — careful diagnosis, conservative prescribing, and structured follow-up for adults who've been quietly compensating for years.
01/ What adult ADHD actually looks likePATIENT EXPERIENCE
01
Every task that should take 10 minutes takes 45.
02
Every email that should be one sentence gets rewritten four times.
03
Every Sunday plan dissolves by Tuesday — not because of laziness, but because the system between intention and execution has resistance built into it.
Most of the high-functioning adults I work with describe variations of the same patterns: they've built elaborate compensating systems — calendars on calendars, alarms layered on alarms, deadlines moved earlier to absorb the inevitable slip. Some have spent decades convinced they're just disorganized. Others knew something was off but never met the textbook description, because the textbook was written for the 8-year-old boy who couldn't sit still in class — not the 38-year-old attorney who can't start the brief until 11pm on the night before it's due.
You're not lazy. You're not broken. You're navigating something that's been there the whole time, and you've never had the right language for it.
02/ Is this really ADHD?DIAGNOSTIC PERSPECTIVE
It's the question most high-functioning adults ask themselves before they reach out. I have a job. I have a degree. I'm not failing. Maybe I'm just stressed. Maybe everyone feels this way.
Adult ADHD in high-functioning people often looks nothing like the version we learned in school.
CASE TYPE 01
The engineer who ships every project — but always at the last possible moment, always at a cost.
CASE TYPE 02
The attorney whose work is excellent, but whose inbox has stopped being something they open.
CASE TYPE 03
The founder who runs the company brilliantly, but can't sit down with the personal-finance app for nine months.
It's also disproportionately the woman who was never identified as a child because she wasn't disruptive — she was just quietly exhausted, masking, and excellent at hiding what she was carrying. Diagnostic awareness of adult ADHD has expanded significantly over the past decade, particularly for presentations that don't fit the childhood textbook.
A careful psychiatric evaluation is how you find out. Not a 10-minute screen. Not a self-administered checklist. A real conversation about your history, your patterns, what's worked and what hasn't, and what the evidence actually says about what's happening for you.
03/ How it works3 STEPS · ADULTS 18+
01 · REACH OUT
Book through the secure portal.
No referral needed. Confirmation within 24 hours, directly from me — not a routing desk.
~ 2 min
02 · EVALUATION
Careful, full history.
Sixty minutes covering childhood patterns, current symptoms, what you've tried, what's working, what isn't. Validated screening tools where they help, but the evaluation is a conversation, not a checklist.
60 min
03 · TREATMENT
A plan that moves forward.
If medication is part of it, we start carefully and adjust based on what you actually experience — not a textbook protocol. If medication isn't the right move, I'll tell you. Follow-ups are 30 min, scheduled at the end of each visit.
ongoing
04/ Insurance & investmentIN-NETWORK VIA ALMA
F10 Psychiatry is in-network with most major commercial plans through Alma — including Aetna, Cigna, Optum / UnitedHealthcare, and Carelon. Also accepting Oscar, Oxford, Meritain, Sutter Health Plan, UMR, Surest, AllSavers, and others.
Initial Evaluation
$425
60 min · self-pay rate
Follow-Up
$295
30 min · self-pay rate
Most patients with in-network coverage pay a copay or coinsurance per visit. Send a message to confirm your specific plan — I'll give you a straight answer before you book.
05/ Common questions about adult ADHD7 ANSWERS
Yes. Adult ADHD is not something that develops in adulthood — but it's commonly missed in childhood, especially in girls, in academically successful kids, in kids whose presentation didn't match the disruptive-boy stereotype, and in kids who built strong compensating strategies early. Many of my patients were never identified until their compensating strategies stopped scaling with adult responsibilities. A careful evaluation looks at lifetime patterns, not just current symptoms.
No. Stimulants are first-line for ADHD because they work well for most people, but they're not the only option. Non-stimulants (atomoxetine, viloxazine, guanfacine, and others including off-label bupropion) are real alternatives. So are non-medication approaches — CBT-informed strategies, executive-function coaching, sleep optimization, and structural changes to how you work. My job is to help you figure out what fits your situation, not to push you toward any specific approach.
Maybe. There are several reasons a prior stimulant trial may not have worked: wrong medication class (methylphenidate vs amphetamine), wrong dose, wrong duration, untreated comorbid sleep or anxiety, side effects that weren't troubleshot. We'll review what was tried, what happened, and what the data suggests for next steps. Sometimes the answer is "try a different molecule." Sometimes it's "non-stimulant first." Sometimes it's "medication isn't the right tool for this."
Often, yes. If you have an established diagnosis and a stable regimen that's working, continuity is the priority. The first visit covers what you're taking, what's working, what isn't, and whether anything needs adjustment. I don't change medications reflexively, and I don't refill on autopilot — but I also don't disrupt what's working just because I'm a new provider.
Initial evaluations are sixty minutes. Follow-ups are thirty. There's time to actually talk about what's happening, how things are going, what's working, what isn't — not just "any side effects, see you in three months." The structure exists because ADHD treatment requires real adjustment over time, not a static prescription.
Then we figure out what's actually going on. The same symptoms can come from anxiety, sleep disorders, depression, hormonal shifts, chronic stress, or just being human in 2026 with too much input. A careful evaluation distinguishes between these. If ADHD isn't the right answer, I'll tell you directly, and we'll address what is.
Not necessarily. Some patients use medication continuously because it's the most effective tool for their situation. Others use it during high-demand periods (a major project, graduate school, parenting young children) and adjust later. Some use it only on workdays. The goal isn't to maximize medication use — it's to use the right tools at the right doses for the situation you're in.
Find out what's actually going on.
Sixty minutes. Full history. A real answer — not a 10-minute screen, not a self-administered checklist. And a treatment plan that fits your life.