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SAN FRANCISCO · CONCIERGE PSYCHIATRY

Psychiatry for people whose treatment has stalled

Board-certified adult psychiatry and psychotherapy from one physician, for complicated histories and for a psychiatric picture tangled up with a medical one. English and Spanish.

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When you’re finally ready for true change.

WHO I SEE

Complicated histories, psychiatric and medical

I am Dr. Mario Benitez-Lopez, a board-certified adult psychiatrist in San Francisco, and I provide the psychotherapy myself as well as the prescribing. That combination matters most when the picture is complicated: a diagnosis that never quite fit, a regimen that has grown across several prescribers, or a psychiatric problem tangled up with a medical one. I am a physician as well as a psychiatrist, so I can read the medical picture rather than working around it, and I can talk to the clinicians already treating you. I see individuals and couples, in English or Spanish.

Explore how I can help

A diagnosis that never quite fit, or a medication that stopped helping
Psychiatric symptoms alongside a medical condition that shapes how they should be treated
A medication regimen that has grown across several prescribers

TRAINING AND CERTIFICATION

Where I trained

Read my full background

I did my adult psychiatry residency at the University of Washington, with distinctions in Psychotherapy, Psychopharmacology and Collaborative Care. Before that I took a master’s at Stanford in Clinical Research and Epidemiology, and earned my MD with honors at the Universidad Autónoma de Baja California – which is where I learned to practice medicine in Spanish.

I am board-certified in adult psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology.

HOW I PRACTICE

What a first appointment actually covers

I keep a small panel, so appointments can be long enough to do the work. The initial evaluation is eighty-five minutes; after that, a combined psychotherapy and medication appointment is fifty-five minutes. That first evaluation goes through the whole medication list, what was tried and what happened, and the medical conditions that bear on the psychiatric picture. You should leave with a formulation – an account of what I think is going on and why – and recommendations that go past a prescription. Where it is realistic I plan treatment toward the point where you no longer need regular appointments, and where it is not I will tell you early.

Eighty-five-minute initial evaluation, then fifty-five-minute appointments
One physician responsible for both the medication and the therapy
Treatment planned toward an ending where that is realistic, and ongoing care where it is not

WHAT I OFFER

Medication and therapy, in the same hour

I prescribe and I provide the psychotherapy myself, so both halves of a treatment plan are worked out in the same appointment.

Appointments & fees

FOR PATIENTS

Where to start

FOR CLINICIANS

Referring a patient

I take referrals from therapists whose clients need medication managed by someone who understands the therapy, and from medical providers whose patients have a psychiatric problem tangled up with a medical one. The patient stays yours – I write back with what I found and what I would recommend, and I am reachable if the plan needs to change.

Illustration of a psychiatrist and a patient in conversation, seated in armchairs in a warm room lined with bookshelves and plants — Fewer medications, fewer visits, and skills you can keep using.

GETTING STARTED

Ready to start the conversation?