Psychiatric Care in Surprise, AZ

Integrative, cash-pay telepsychiatry for Surprise — from the comfort of home.

Mental Health Care for Surprise

Surprise sits at the far northwest edge of the Valley, where large active-adult communities and a long drive into Phoenix define how most residents spend their days.

Willow & Stone brings doctoral-level, integrative psychiatric care to Surprise and the surrounding Maricopa County area by secure telehealth — combining evidence-based medication management with functional, root-cause strategies. You get longer, unhurried appointments and a whole-person approach, without the commute or the waitlist.

Our Services for Surprise

Why Choose Willow & Stone

• ✓Doctoral-level, board-certified psychiatric provider (Dr. Stacey Forbes, DNP, PMHNP-BC)
• ✓Integrative & functional approach — gut-brain axis, nutrition, labs, root causes
• ✓GeneSight pharmacogenomic testing to personalize medication
• ✓Experienced with treatment-resistant depression — root-cause workup, not just the next prescription
• ✓Cash-pay transparency — no insurance delays or prior authorizations
• ✓Telehealth-first convenience for Surprise residents

Surprise in practice

Surprise sits at the far northwestern edge of the Phoenix metro, and its distance from the centre is the defining fact of living there. Large active-adult communities make up a substantial part of the city, bringing a concentration of older patients whose depression is routinely filed under normal ageing and whose medication regimens have accumulated across several prescribers over years. The working residents commute a long way southeast into the Valley, leaving before the heat and returning after it. In summer, when going outside during daylight stops being reasonable, the walking and the socialising that had been quietly holding people steady stop with it.

Getting care in Surprise

Psychiatric specialty referrals from Surprise point back into the Valley, meaning a drive that is long in any season and genuinely taxing between May and September. For older residents that combination — freeway distance plus summer heat — is the most common reason a referral is never acted on, and it is rarely the reason given. For commuting residents the appointment competes with a day that already contains two hours of driving. A video visit removes the trip in both cases, and it makes the every-few-weeks follow-up schedule that medication adjustment actually requires something a patient here can realistically keep.

What Surprise patients need from a psychiatric practice

A community weighted toward older residents needs a psychiatric practice that takes late-life presentations seriously rather than filing them under ageing. Depression that shows up as physical complaints, cognitive concerns that may be medication-related, bereavement, and the loss of independence that follows giving up driving are all treatable, and all routinely dismissed. It also needs a practice willing to review a long existing medication list rather than simply adding to it.

In a climate with a long and genuinely severe summer, the season is a clinical variable rather than a complaint about the weather. Activity stops, sleep is broken, and people withdraw indoors for months, and a practice that does not ask about that specifically will treat the resulting low mood as though it appeared from nowhere. It also matters for prescribing: heat tolerance and hydration interact with several psychiatric medications, and that is worth planning around before the hot months rather than reacting to during them.

In a community built around long commutes, the day is fully committed before anyone considers adding an appointment, and healthcare is what gets deferred. Care that costs only the length of the visit — with no travel on either side — is what makes an ongoing treatment plan realistic rather than aspirational.

Transparent Cash-Pay Care

Willow & Stone is a direct-pay practice, so Surprise patients skip insurance delays, prior authorizations, and surprise bills. We provide a superbill you can submit to your insurer for possible out-of-network reimbursement, and we're happy to review current rates with you before you book.

Other Arizona Communities We Serve

Willow & Stone also provides telehealth psychiatry to Peoria, Glendale.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you need help right now

Willow & Stone is an outpatient practice and is not an emergency service. If you or someone you care about is in immediate danger, call 911.

For urgent mental health support at any hour, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, or text HOME to 741741 for the Crisis Text Line. Both are free, confidential, and available 24/7 nationwide.