How it Works:

Patient’s guardian requests an appointment with Dr. Bansal.
Once appointment is scheduled, an email invitation is sent out to set up a patient portal. Guardian sets up the portal and fills out the intake form.
On the day of appointment, Guardian clicks the link that was sent via email or text message to join Dr. Bansal’s waiting room.
Patient is seen via TeleHealth platform for a new patient evaluation.
If medication is started, patient is seen for a follow up appointment generally within a month after new patient evaluation. See medication management visit for details.
Appropriate referrals will be made for psychotherapy as required. See psychotherapy for details.
On guardian’s request, letters can be written for the school and for the pediatricians as needed. See other services for details.

Comprehensive Psychiatric Evaluation:

It includes a child interview with the children psychiatrist, a parent interview and gathering information from diverse sources, including the family, school, and other agencies involved with the child. This helps us identify potential individual, family, or environmental factors that may account for or influence child’s difficulties. We consider biological, psychological and social factors that play a role in the current difficulties that our patients are experiencing as we consider the interaction between all these factors. We strive to create a comprehensive treatment plan, to address the core and contributing factors identified during the evaluation. We address those factors by implementing or recommending evidence-based interventions, broader than the limited interventions offered by medication use only. These interventions might include psychotherapy alone, combination of medication and psychotherapy, referral for further testing to clarify or rule out certain psychiatry conditions, recommendations to school to manage patient’s behavior and learning, requesting school to provide accommodations and extra help for academics or to learn certain skills.

Medication Management:

If a medication is started at the time of new patient evaluation, a follow-up visit is generally recommended within 2-4 weeks to access the benefits and side effects of the medication and further recommendations are made from there. We stress heavily on psychoeducation by spending enough time with the patient during every visit and reminding patients and parents about the key elements of the treatment in between their appointments with the use of technology via audio-visual education and reading materials.

Psychotherapy Referral & Collaboration with Psychotherapist:

At BanCAPs, we prioritize the integration of medication and psychotherapy for comprehensive mental health treatment. Our process begins with an accurate psychiatric diagnosis, crucial in charting the most effective treatment plan. Through our in-depth clinical evaluations, we determine the necessity and type of therapy best suited for each patient. We ensure that our patients are referred to skilled therapists, proficient in the recommended therapeutic methods. This approach, coupled with our ongoing collaboration with these therapists, ensures a highly personalized treatment plan, combining medication and psychotherapy to meet each individual’s unique mental health needs

ADHD Testing:

We offer objective computerized evaluation of the patient’s attention span, focus, impulsivity, and fine motor activity. Testing at times is required for diagnostic clarification as symptoms of anxiety, depression, oppositional behavior, poor motivation, learning disability and intellectual disability can mimic symptoms of ADHD. In these cases, this 30 minutes test increases the accuracy of clinical diagnosis. It also helps to understand the severity of symptoms and the child’s symptom profile which in turn helps us provide more customized recommendations to school for accommodations for ADHD.

Other Services:

Collaboration with Pediatricians and other care providers: At the time of initial evaluation, if needed, input will be obtained from patient’s pediatrician. If guardian allows, pediatrician will be kept updated about patient’s current treatment plan.

Collaboration with schools:

We provide broad and/or specific recommendations to schools for interventions that may be helpful to address patients academic and emotional needs and help manage patient’s behavior on a day-to-day basis.
We help parents to advocate to school district for their child’s needs including making requests to complete specific testing or to provide certain accommodations for child’s learning and behavior.