How can we help?

Your first appointment is a psychiatric evaluation — typically 60–75 minutes. Nicholas will review your personal and psychiatric history, current concerns, medications, and goals. Together you will develop an initial treatment plan. Come with a list of current medications and any questions you have.

We offer psychiatric evaluations, individual therapy, medication management, telepsychiatry, and mindfulness & wellness support. All services are goal-oriented and tailored to each client.

If you are already an established client, request, reschedule, or cancel a visit in the client portal — open Appointments under My care and pick from the times shown, which are your provider's real availability. Every request reaches your care team for review, and we email you once it is decided — a visit you ask to cancel stays on the calendar until we confirm the cancellation. New clients request a first appointment through the form at northwestpsychiatry.org/waitlist. We reach out within a few business days; first appointments are typically scheduled within 1–2 weeks for non-urgent requests.

For urgent but non-emergency concerns, call us at (360) 342-6445 during business hours or send a message through your client portal. For a psychiatric emergency or if you are in crisis, call 911, go to your nearest emergency room, or call/text 988 (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline) — available 24/7, free and confidential.

The Assessments tab lets you complete standardized psychiatric screenings assigned by your provider — including PHQ-9 (depression), GAD-7 (anxiety), MDQ (bipolar), ASRS (ADHD), PCL-5 (PTSD), ISI (insomnia), AUDIT (alcohol use), and others. Most take about 2–5 minutes; a few of the longer questionnaires run to forty questions or more. After answering all questions, your score is automatically interpreted and saved — your provider can review results to monitor symptom trends between appointments. A few are reviewed with you rather than scored on screen: for the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ-50) you complete the questionnaire from the Autism Research Centre and enter your answers here by item number, and your provider goes over the result with you. A screening your provider scores from a form a parent or caregiver completed, such as the SCQ (Social Communication Questionnaire), is listed in your results as “For review with your provider”, with no score shown — your provider goes over it with you too.

Click the Messages tab in your client portal. Type your message and click Send. All messages are encrypted and private. Messages are intended for non-urgent questions — if you have an urgent concern, please call (360) 342-6445. For a psychiatric emergency, call 911 or 988.

For your privacy and security, the portal automatically signs you out after about 30 minutes of inactivity — especially important on shared or public devices. You'll see a warning 5 minutes before the session expires, giving you the option to stay signed in. If you are signed out, just enter your email on the sign-in page and we'll send you a fresh 6-digit code.

On the Telehealth section of your Appointments tab, while the visit is open. It appears on its own — there is no message to watch for and no link to open. On a computer, or a tablet turned sideways, it sits beside the video. On a phone, or a tablet held upright, tap Join game at the bottom of the screen: the activity fills the screen with your provider in a small video in a corner (drag it to any corner); Show video and Back to game switch between the two, and Back to portal closes the activity's screen. The call keeps running either way. If you are somewhere else in the portal when it arrives, Join game appears there too — on a computer, in the small video window. "Open full screen" opens the activity in its own browser tab, and a few activities can only run that way and will say so; your video stays in the portal's tab, so keep that tab open. When your provider ends a game, it leaves your screen; a game they start when your visit is not open waits at the top of your portal instead, with a Join game button.

Press "Join session" on your Home tab or on your Appointments tab — it appears about 30 minutes before the start and is the only way in. On every device — computer, phone or tablet, in a browser or in the Northwest Psychiatry app — the visit opens right here in the portal, never in a separate browser tab. You can keep using the portal while it runs: the video moves to a small window and stays connected, and "Back to your visit" brings it back. Only signing out or leaving the portal ends the call, and the portal asks before either. Allow camera and microphone access when asked, then wait until your provider admits you. To check your camera and microphone first, press "Check camera & microphone" on the Telehealth section before you join.

Your visit runs on Doxy.me, which picks its own microphone and speakers — usually your device's default — so choose them inside the video. While you wait to be admitted, hover over your own video and click the three dots (⋮); on a phone or tablet, tap the gear at the top left of your video. Once the visit has started, click or tap the video to show its buttons, then the gear or the three dots on the bar at the bottom. During a visit, "Sound not right?" on the Telehealth section shows these steps. Sounding muffled, like talking underwater, is usually a Bluetooth headset switching to its low-quality hands-free mode because its own microphone is in use: pick your computer's built-in microphone and keep the headset for listening, or use wired earphones. Close other apps that use your microphone and press "Reconnect" if it is still not right. Before a visit, "Check camera & microphone" lets you pick and test your microphone and speakers.

No. Screenings, the pre-session Check-in, records-release requests and form requests save as you type — a line under the form reads "Your answers are saved as you go." — and worksheets have always saved as you go. Come back later, on any device, and pick up where you left off; pressing Submit sends your answers and clears the draft. Two things are deliberately not saved as drafts: a message is sent or it isn't, and a signature is always typed fresh at the moment you sign.

Yes — open the Medications tab and press "Download signed order (PDF)" on any current medication. Each press makes a fresh signed copy on the practice's letterhead with its own serial number. For most medications it is a prescription your pharmacy can use as a backup to the electronic one; for a controlled medication it is marked as a record copy a pharmacy cannot fill from, because those prescriptions must reach the pharmacy electronically or hand-signed — so that copy is for your own records. Medications you no longer take don't have one.

Yes. Whenever the practice confirms, moves or cancels one of your visits, you get an email and a notification under the bell at the top of the portal, each naming the date and time. Your own requests work the same way: a booking, reschedule or cancellation you ask for stays pending until your care team decides it, and you hear the moment they do.

Yes — the Worksheets section of the Library tab is a toolkit, not just an inbox. Under "Start something new" you can build a custom worksheet around whatever is on your mind — pick a starting point from one list (search it, or narrow it by kind, such as Anxiety or Mindfulness), or skip that and just describe what's going on — open Food for Mood (your weekly meal guide, which lives in the Library tab), build a coping skills card (pick what you're facing and how strong it is — you get a pocket card of 6 skills to try), build a small weekly action plan matched to how much energy you have, or start a classic exercise like a gratitude log, CBT thought record, SMART goal, worry log, or sleep log. Your answers save automatically as you type, finished exercises can be repeated with one tap or downloaded as a PDF and printed, and everything you create is shared with your provider unless you switch sharing off on that worksheet.

Contact Headway support directly — they handle all insurance submissions and appeals. If the denial involves a clinical issue (e.g. prior authorization or a diagnostic question), contact us at (360) 342-6445 and we'll work with you to resolve it.