Psychiatric Care in Waco, TX

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

Mental Health Care for Waco

Waco, home to Baylor University, blends a college population with a Central Texas community that is underserved by psychiatric specialists.

Willow & Stone brings doctoral-level, integrative psychiatric care to Waco 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 Waco

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 Waco residents

Waco in practice

Waco sits at the midpoint of the interstate between Dallas and Austin, which gives it an unusual dual character: a university city built around Baylor, and a regional center serving a broad rural catchment in Central Texas. The student population generates steady demand for anxiety, depression, and ADHD evaluation, while the surrounding communities bring the clinical profile of rural Texas — later presentation, longer symptom duration, and considerably less local access to any psychiatric care at all. Both are served by the same thin local specialty capacity.

Getting care in Waco

Waco's position between two major metros means residents are frequently referred out to Dallas or Austin for psychiatric specialty care, each of which is a substantial drive for a single appointment. For rural patients already traveling into Waco, that becomes a second leg on an already long trip. Telehealth ends the referral chain at the first step: the patient stays where they are and still sees a doctoral-level clinician, which is what the outward referral was supposed to accomplish.

What Waco patients need from a psychiatric practice

A student population needs psychiatric care that survives the academic calendar. Campus services are built for short-term support and rarely provide ongoing medication management, and the handoff between them and an outside prescriber is where treatment most often lapses. Continuity across semesters and summers matters more here than proximity to campus.

Where the nearest psychiatric specialist is an hour or more away, the practical consequence is not slower care but absent care — particularly for the short, frequent follow-ups that medication management depends on. A practice serving this kind of community has to make routine contact cheap in time, or the treatment plan quietly becomes an evaluation and nothing after it.

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 Waco 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.

Nearby Communities We Serve

Willow & Stone also provides telehealth psychiatry to Austin, Dallas.

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.