Anxiety & PTSD • San Antonio Telehealth
Adult anxiety and PTSD care for San Antonio patients by secure Texas telehealth — including thoughtful work with military, veteran, and first-responder families across the metro.
San Antonio is a unique place to practice psychiatry. Joint Base San Antonio — Lackland, Fort Sam Houston, and Randolph — is woven through the metro, and a meaningful share of the patients who reach out to us from San Antonio are active-duty service members, veterans, military spouses, retired first responders, and their adult children. Many have lived through deployments, transitions, line-of-duty incidents, or the slow cumulative weight of a career in service.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, an estimated 19.1% of U.S. adults had any anxiety disorder in the past year, and about 31.1% will experience one at some point in their lifetime. San Antonio's rates of trauma-related symptoms in adult populations skew higher than the national average for population-specific reasons that careful evaluation needs to account for, not paper over.
An initial evaluation is 60 to 75 minutes by secure video. Inside the visit, the provider works through the specific pattern of anxiety, panic, intrusive memories, hypervigilance, avoidance, and sleep disruption — including the timeline, the triggers, and the functional impact. Trauma history is approached carefully and at the patient's pace. We do not require a detailed retelling of any traumatic event during a first visit; the goal is to understand the clinical picture well enough to plan good care.
PTSD is differentiated from generalized anxiety, panic disorder, social anxiety, OCD, and adjustment disorders, because the treatment implications differ. Sleep is examined directly — disrupted sleep amplifies almost every anxiety and trauma symptom and is often the first thing worth stabilizing.
SLS Psychiatry can evaluate PTSD symptoms and provide medication management when clinically appropriate. SSRIs and SNRIs are commonly used first-line options for generalized anxiety, panic, and PTSD; specific recommendations are made only after a clinical evaluation, based on diagnosis, history, and safety. No medication is prescribed without a clinical evaluation.
Trauma-focused psychotherapy — Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT), Prolonged Exposure (PE), or EMDR — is the evidence-based core of PTSD treatment and is typically provided by specialized therapists. We are straightforward about referring San Antonio patients to local trauma-focused therapists or to VA programs when that is the right next step. Active-duty service members may also have access to the embedded behavioral health resources at their installation, and we are happy to coordinate when appropriate.
Controlled substances such as benzodiazepines are not prescribed casually for anxiety or PTSD. They have a real role in narrow situations, and a real cost when used outside of those situations, and we are explicit about that.
Telehealth visits are conducted by secure video; you must be physically located in Texas at the time of each visit. Office hours are Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 7 PM, by appointment. We accept UnitedHealthcare, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, and Aetna.
If you are in immediate danger or experiencing a life-threatening situation, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. The 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline is available 24/7 by call or text; veterans can press 1 to reach the Veterans Crisis Line. The Center for Health Care Services (Bexar County's local mental health authority) operates a 24/7 crisis line at (210) 223-7233. Telehealth is the right tool for ongoing scheduled outpatient psychiatric care; it is not a substitute for emergency intervention.