Psychiatric Medicine Association

Am surprised to see criticism of this clinic as my experience has been nothing but top notch in every respect. Bright clean, modern office, excellent front desk staff — very efficient and friendly. My doctor there (P. Roy Byrne) is as highly qualified and experienced a man as one could find and is very patient and detail oriented. I appreciate particularly that he deals with me holistically discussing all aspects of my health. I have been attending for over two years now and can honestly say I have never had a bad experience. More to the point I have recovered my mental health completely — something I despaired of ever happening. As for the person below who complains that they wouldn’t accept a high risk suicidal client. Why should they? These doctors studied for years and paid a fortune to become qualified. Most of them dedicated years of work already at public hospitals in highly stressful conditions where they had to take everyone that came in the door whether they were suicidal, homicidal, covered in excrement and in a full blown psychotic episode and worse etc. They have more than paid their dues. Now they have set up in private practice — presumably to have more control over their work and their clientele — they are perfectly entitled to accept only those patients they want to work with. I was an attorney and I didnt take every client who came in the door with a legal issue offering me money — I only took cases that interested me from pleasant, respectful and responsive clients. Given the massive exposure to litigation that doctors have and the degree of speculative litigation allowed in the USA, if they have policies to decrease risk, that’s smart and perfectly understandable. Why do people expect doctors to act like charities or saints? They provide services for money just like everyone else who has to go to work in this world and they want to pay their bills and live a decent, untroubled life. Would you expect a plumber to accept every client and job that was offered to him? Of course not, he’s expected to choose what work he wants to do and is comfortable with. It’s the same with doctors in private practice. Please also consider that the loss of a patient to suicide is devastating to doctors too. It’s perfectly acceptable for them to minimize the risk of that happening to them repeatedly.

I am not sure what other people are talking about. The doctor that I saw here saved my life. He is thorough and compassionate and runs on time. I have had other psychiatrists in the past who just want to give me pills and push me out the door. He spent the time to figure out what was going on. Sure, it takes more time but it is worth it.

The place is very badly managed, even though my doctor was good. The owner I guess is a total narcissists and high on his horse. He was very egotistical to my wife at a local private club. He gave her very bad advice and was very judgmental.
The worst part is the office manager and admin staff. Numerous times they would not get the prescription refilled. Once it came to do some paper work for my work, it took them almost 3 weeks to get it done.
Please save your self the trouble and do not use these guys at all. All the owner cares about is money and even nice doctors don’t get to do their job there.

I haven’t had the bad experience at all like other reviewers. I’ve been seeing Dr. Kumar for a few months now, and he has been a great help to me. He genuinely cares, and is very proactive in setting up a plan to ease my Anxiety and Depression. After the first session, I could tell this was going to be a great fit for me, and so far I haven’t been wrong.
I accidentally missed an appointment, and I was able to reschedule for the next day and Dr. Kumar waived the missed appointment fee, which he didn’t have to do. One time only of course, but he was understanding of my mistake.
I’m excited to continue my Journey with Dr. Kumar and Psychiatric Medicine Associates.
The Front desk staff has been nothing but nice!
The only gripe I have, is if you don’t know where to go, it’s a little difficult to find

Refused to see a young man just out of ICU after a suicide attempt. He has been battling with addiction and bipolar, because his previous suicide attempt he is «too high of a risk».

Recently moved to Seattle and needed to find a new local psychiatrist. Called and made an appointment, clearly spelling out that I simply wanted to continue treatment with the same medication as I have been on for a year. The office sent emails with specific instructions on the office location and a link to their secure online portal.
Parking: Garage is $ 7 for early bird, more for midday and can be confusing on how to enter the building. Across the street is some free parking or city parking with minimal charges, and you can walk across the pedestrian bridge to the building.
Office directions: Actually needed in this case as the building is under construction and there is poor signage.
Online portal process: Inefficient, requiring multiple logins and the office staff to ‘review’ mid-​stream before all paperwork is complete. The office staff review is done during business hours so make sure to allow time for them to perform this seemingly unnecessary step to activate tests. I didn’t understand why they kept saying to use the portal during the day so here it is. :)
Physical office: Very warm and dry. Good news is that they have warm water bottles out.
Support Staff: The girl with brown hair at the front desk has no idea that she is in a service industry and can be quite rude. Other staff were helpful and efficient.
Appointment: Dr. Avery greeted me with at least 4 feet of space, no smile, no handshake, and wide gestures as to which office was his. Mercifully his office wasn’t hot though still a little warm. We went through the typical history etc. I found myself having to repeat information so he could type it into his notes, and similarly he would be easily confused when telling him my story. It seemed like he was only half listening, and he was focused on typing. For example:
— «I used to be a runner which really helped me feel good and was a positive outlet for frustration. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to exercise since I hurt my knee two years ago.» Later, when he took my blood pressure, he remarked that I have an athlete’s profile. Again, later, he asked about how running effected symptoms in Seattle.
— «I take 60mg in the morning and 30mg in the evening, so a total of 90mg per day.» He noticeably tuned out the 30mg dose so I repeated this information in several ways during my first session and even paused to let him type to get it corrected in his notes. In a follow up session, he would yet again reference 60mg per day, which I again corrected. Later, when I had a copy of my patient intake record, it still incorrectly states my dosage.
— There were several other examples of communication challenges though they are too personal for an public review. In the spirit of charity, I thought that perhaps Dr. Avery had all of the information in his notes and just needed a chance to review and organize them better. However, upon the second session, my charity and my patience was worn through. He had inaccurate facts and made assumptions rather than asking simple clarifying questions.
In the end, I told Dr. Avery that there was a clear communication issue. I listed a few factual misrepresentations that were of deep concern. I could not imagine working with him when it came to the subjective, and felt that he would continue to favor statistics from studies instead of honor my personal experiences. For example, at the end of the second session, I brought up the dosage facts. He explained the nightly 30mg dose was something he ignored because the medication typically causes people to be energetic. As I told him repeatedly, the medication’s effect on me was to make me drowsy. He had a hard time accepting this information even once his focus was on it and seemed to regard my response as an irrelevant anomaly. Perhaps it is an anomaly to the greater community, but we are here to treat me specifically.
My 2 cents on Dr. Avery: Great credentials paired with poor listening and communication skills which led to inaccurate facts and thus conclusions (as I saw proof of in my records). I felt I was to being treated as a statistic instead of an individual, which could greatly limit the potential to partner on successful treatment. Dr. Avery was not open to a revision of his conclusions even when his attention was drawn to inaccurate facts.
Bottom line: everything about my experience was unnecessarily complicated. I made an appointment to continue the same treatment that had done so much for me. Laughably Dr. Avery’s conclusion was that I was ambivalent toward that same treatment. Methinks this office is nuts :) Definitely do not recommend even trying this place as a possible option.

My experience with the entire staff here has been fantastic. Dr. Lin is the best psychiatrist I’ve ever had. She actually listens carefully to what you say and provides compassionate, professional medical care that improves your life.

After years of visiting different psychiatrists and therapists across the country, I can conclusively say that this is the single worst experience I’ve had with anyone in the mental health industry. I had a simple request for a doctor to supervise a change in my medication, and got so far as setting up an appointment.
Upon the day of the appointment, I was confronted with an emergency at work that prevented me from attending. When I notified their office of my emergency (later that day), and wanted to reschedule, the office assistant informed me that they were refusing to see me. Evidently they have a ‘policy’ not to reschedule new patients.
I’ve never heard of such a thing in over 15 years of seeing different mental health professionals. So even after I tolerated their generally terse attitude throughout the process, I was ultimately refused service.
This is very disappointing to me because I need to change my medication due to a time-​sensitive issue, and I will now have to start from square one. Hopefully they don’t send me a bill, because all I’d give them in return is a court summons. Please do not bother wasting your time with this organization.

Dr. Lin’s only interest was in pinning down a diagnosis and a treatment plan and thus her bedside manner was cold and disconnected. She diagnosed me with Borderline disorder and prescribed DBT Therapy. She said that if I didn’t go to an intense daily DBT therapy somewhere in Seattle, she wouldn’t see me again. I know myself well enough, and did not want to stop my life and go everyday to an expensive clinic. Not only do I know I don’t have Borderline, I have been told over and over again by other professionals that I only have depression and anxiety, and in fact, I was finally diagnosed with Lyme’s Disease, which explains the depression, anxiety, and physical agony I have been going through the last 7 years. As for DBT therapy, that is only ONE route to help with Borderline, which I do not have.
Furthermore, she would not prescribe me any of my ongoing meds (unless I stopped my life and went to the DBT clinic everyday), and because I could not find another psychiatrist in time before my meds ran out, I ended up in the hospital due to withdrawal of my meds. I called when things were becoming dangerous from the withdrawal, and Dr. Lin would still not see me because I wasn’t enrolled in a DBT clinic!
DO NOT GO TO THIS INCOMPETENT «DOC».