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Welcome To Couch & Cardigan
About Sam Shapiro, M.D.
Sam Shapiro, M.D. is a psychiatrist with over 10 years of clinical experience, who is board-certified in both general and forensic psychiatry. He is the founding member of Couch & Cardigan, an independent psychiatry practice located in Austin that serves patients locally and throughout Texas.
Dr. Shapiro completed his medical degree at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), and he completed his training in both psychiatry residency and forensic psychiatry fellowship at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.
Having practiced full-time at one of the largest universities in the country (UT Austin), Dr. Shapiro has extensive clinical expertise working with college and university students. He continues to provide telepsychiatry services to college and university students located throughout Texas, New York, and Florida.
Dr. Shapiro’s expertise also includes treating veterans. He has practiced in multiple Veterans Affairs clinics located in Texas, New York, and Pennsylvania, and has extensive experience in recognizing and treating posttraumatic stress.
Dr. Shapiro has experience in multiple work settings, including: emergency rooms, hospitals, and forensic facilities. He has supervised medical students and physicians-in-training, and has previously held affiliate faculty positions at Dell Medical School (Austin, TX) and New York Institute of Technology (Old Westbury, NY). He has previously been a medical director for a partial hospital/intensive outpatient therapy program.
Currently, Dr. Shapiro continues to treat college students on a regular basis throughout Texas, New York, and Florida, and continues to treat veterans in Pennsylvania through his work with Veterans Affairs.
Why Choose Couch & CArdigan?
Creating the time and space for well-being
Dr. Shapiro offers unhurried and comprehensive appointments, with time to talk and feel understood. Dr. Shapiro knows about medicine options, integrative treatment approaches, therapies, and the mind-body connection, but he also knows that you are the expert on you. This is why working together on a treatment plan is so important.
Services include therapy-informed medicine management (examples of ‘therapy-informed’ being applying cognitive-behavioral/CBT, psychodynamic, and/or motivational interviewing principles), individual therapy sessions, lifestyle education, and health coaching.
Dr. Shapiro can provide forensic consultations, though these services cannot be offered to current patients of his practice.
Services
Medication Management
Medicine can help reduce or relieve the symptoms of many mood, anxiety, trauma/stress reactions, obsessions/compulsions, attention deficit, and other behavioral health conditions.
Dr. Shapiro believes in careful and and thoughtful medicine selection, and that treatment is based on appropriate medicine selections, and patient’s preference among these appropriate choices.
- Initial Evaluation (75 minutes): $400
- 40 minute follow-up $350
- 20 minute follow-up $200
Online Appointments
Telehealth appointments bring a convenience and privacy that many prefer to the office setting.
Couch & Cardigan offers telehealth appointments through a secure and private medical platform. Please call or submit an online request for a free consultation if you’d like to learn more about the options of online and in-person appointments.
- Initial Evaluation (75 minutes): $400
- 40 minute follow-up $350
- 20 minute follow-up $200
Forensic Consultations
Dr. Shapiro has completed a fellowship in forensic psychiatry, and has been certified in forensic psychiatry by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He can bring his expertise as a consultant to forensic cases where expert psychiatric opinion is relevant. Please call or request a consultation to learn more.
- Hourly Rate: $500/hr
Request a CONSULTATION
Let's Talk
If you’re located in Austin, Texas or nearby, appointments can be scheduled in-person or online. Dr. Shapiro’s office is located in Northwest Central Austin. Telehealth appointments can be offered throughout Texas.
In Florida and New York, telehealth appointments are available, but no controlled medications will be prescribed across state lines. Examples of controlled medications include Adderall, Ritalin, Xanax, or Klonopin. Often there are effective non-controlled medication alternatives to these, for those who are looking to explore these options.
Office Hours: Friday 8:00 am – 6:00 pm
Early mornings, weekends and evenings on request
Generally Asked Questions
The first appointment is a consultation where there is a detailed review of your concerns, with a further review of psychiatric history, social history, and family history. The first appointment is longer than the usual follow-up, lasting around 60-75 minutes in length. At the end of the appointment, there will be a discussion of what was reviewed. Dr. Shapiro will share his thoughts about treatment, and whether Couch & Cardigan can meet your needs.
Often it is, but not necessarily. It depends on the discussed treatment plan, and whether it’s clear that Couch & Cardigan can meet your treatment needs.
Though not usually the case, a consultation may need to extend to an additional appointment to clarify the issues and refine diagnostic considerations. Dr. Shapiro would inform you of this at the end of the first visit.
These appointments are scheduled after the first appointment, once a treatment plan has been agreed upon. They tend to be shorter in length (20-25 minutes). In these appointments, the treatment plan can be further reviewed and refined to best meet your needs.
Follow-up appointments tend to occur more frequently at the beginning of treatment. For example, frequency may be every 2-4 weeks in the first two or three months of treatment, and sometimes more frequently than this based on symptoms. Typically, appointments become less frequent over time.
At a minimum, follow-ups are recommended once every 3 months to ensure the best ongoing care and to review and potentially make helpful adjustments to the treatment plan.
Couch & Cardigan is currently out-of-network with insurances and therefore does not accept insurances, or directly bill insurances for services.
At this time, all appointment fees are collected prior to beginning that day’s appointment.
Patients can receive a document called a superbill, which is a receipt that includes information about the services provided and the associated costs. Patient can submit this superbill to their insurance for partial reimbursement of the services.
Patients will receive a good faith estimate (GFE), which is a list of expected charges for the year.
A psychiatrist is a doctor who completed either medical school (M.D. after the name) or a school of osteopathy (D.O. after the name), and then went on to specialize in the field of psychiatry through a program called a residency. Psychiatry residency programs are usually four years in length. A psychiatrist can then do additional specialty training in fields such as forensics (law), child and adolescent care, addiction, elder care, or consultation/liaison services, among other less common sub-specialties.
In treatment planning, psychiatrists can offer therapy, medication, health coaching, interventional treatments, integrated care/naturalistic treatments, or a combination thereof.
