Evaluations, medication management, and supportive therapy for adults 18 to 65, by video, from a practice that will ask what your nights actually look like.
Book an Appointment →Aurora Highlands is the residential shoulder of south Arlington: brick and frame houses built long before anyone had a phrase like National Landing, streets that go quiet at a reasonable hour, and a skyline of towers standing directly behind them. Planes descending into Reagan National pass overhead on a schedule the neighborhood knows by heart. Households who bought here in the 1970s live beside people who arrived last year for a job they can walk to, and the two groups are describing rather different places.
If you have been searching for Aurora Highlands psychiatric care, the results probably sent you toward Crystal City towers or over a bridge. Anh "Alice" Tran, PMHNP-BC, FNP-BC, is a dual board-certified psychiatric mental health and family nurse practitioner licensed in Virginia who treats adults 18 to 65. Patients here are seen by video. The office itself is at 3060 Williams Drive, Suite 300, Fairfax, VA 22031, in Merrifield, with free on-site parking, and it is a choice rather than a requirement.
You join at doxy.me/alicetran. It opens in a browser, there is nothing to install and no account to create, and the whole preparation is clicking a link a few minutes early to confirm your camera and microphone work. If the connection drops, you rejoin at the same link and the office calls to help you get back in, so the appointment finishes on video rather than turning into a phone call.
That rule is deliberate. A real share of what a psychiatric provider needs to observe is visible rather than audible: how someone moves, how long a pause runs, whether the face matches the sentence. There is no phone-only option and no phone fallback. Telehealth reaches all of Virginia and you need to be physically in the state during the appointment. If you would rather sit in a room, in-person visits happen in Fairfax at 3060 Williams Drive, Suite 300, with free parking, which from Aurora Highlands is roughly 25 to 35 minutes depending on the hour. The Northern Virginia telehealth page has more.
The reasons cluster differently here than they do a few blocks east in the towers. More of them involve sleep, and more of them involve having stayed in one place while the place changed.
Aircraft on approach, early departures, and a bedroom that never gets fully dark or fully quiet. Chronically fragmented sleep degrades mood, concentration, and patience, and people tend to attribute all three to a character flaw instead.
Longtime residents watching development arrive at the property line. It is a genuine loss of a familiar place, and because nothing was technically taken, it usually goes unspoken and gets treated as being difficult about progress.
People who relocated for work at National Landing, found housing quickly, and then discovered that a short commute does not build a life. Six months in, the quiet at the end of the day starts to register as something heavier.
Aging in place with stairs, a yard, and decisions about driving that adult children have begun raising carefully. The anxiety and grief inside those conversations rarely get called anything except logistics.
Adults who managed by working late and remembering everything, until the job started requiring them to track other people too. What gets labeled disorganization is frequently untreated attention deficit hyperactivity disorder arriving late.
Trauma from a deployment, a job, an accident, or a childhood in another decade, carried quietly for years because there was never a good time. It tends to resurface when something slows down enough to let it.
This is adult psychiatry for ages 18 to 65. The focus stays on how something operates inside your particular week rather than how neatly it maps to a category.
Sleep and burnout. Insomnia, including the version that started as a noise problem and outlived the noise, along with burnout that has moved past tired into something clinical. Sleep is where the evaluation often starts here, because getting it wrong makes everything downstream harder to read.
Mood. Depression, including the version that still mows the lawn and answers the phone, plus bipolar disorder and grief that has outlasted what other people expected of it. The PHQ-9 and depression treatment in Virginia are both there to read first.
Anxiety, panic, and OCD. Anxiety that shows up as a jaw and a stomach before it ever reaches words, panic attacks that feel like a cardiac event, and obsessive compulsive patterns that have quietly taken over an evening routine. Try the GAD-7 screener or the anxiety treatment page.
Attention, trauma, and reproductive mental health. ADHD in adults, whether newly suspected or diagnosed decades ago and abandoned, with a free adult ADHD self-check and a full page on ADHD treatment in Virginia. Also PTSD and trauma responses, and postpartum and perinatal mood changes.
Psychiatric evaluation. Sixty minutes, which is long enough to take an actual history instead of a snapshot. That includes a proper sleep history, since in this part of Arlington the difference between insomnia caused by a mood disorder, insomnia caused by noise, and undiagnosed sleep apnea decides most of what follows. If the honest answer is a sleep study rather than a prescription, you will hear that.
Medication management. When medication is reasonable, the reasoning comes first: the target, the realistic timeline, what to watch in the opening two weeks, and the plan if it turns out to be a poor match. Dose changes track your response rather than a schedule. Prescriptions go electronically to whatever pharmacy you already use in Pentagon City, Crystal City, or along Route 1. Controlled medications, including stimulants for adult ADHD, follow Virginia requirements, which can mean an in-person appointment in Fairfax. Details are on the medication management page.
Supportive therapy. Follow-ups run 30 or 45 minutes. The 45 exists so the appointment can be something other than a refill: the conversation with your children about the house, the resentment you have not been able to phrase about what got built, the year you have spent living somewhere without settling into it. When structured longer-term therapy is what you need, whether trauma processing or a full course of cognitive behavioral therapy, Alice says so and helps you find it, and she will coordinate with clinicians you already see. The services page has the rest.
Paperwork comes by email in advance so the hour is spent in conversation. Answer what you can and leave the rest. None of it is scored. Insurance is verified beforehand, so the cost is settled before you sit down rather than arriving on a statement weeks later.
Alice usually opens with some version of why now, because the moment a person finally books tells you things a symptom list does not. After that: what you are experiencing and when it began, what your life looked like then, medical and family history, sleep in detail, alcohol and caffeine, and everything you currently take, including over-the-counter and herbal products. Then she says what she is thinking and why, in plain terms, and the plan gets built with you. Most people book a first follow-up two to four weeks out. There is a walkthrough on the first appointment checklist and preparation notes on how to prepare for a psychiatric evaluation.
You see Alice each time. Not a rotating panel and not whoever has an opening. In psychiatric care the useful information stacks up: what happened when a dose changed in April is what makes the November decision obvious instead of speculative. Continuity is the thing a small practice can offer and a large system generally cannot.
The dual board certification carries real weight in a neighborhood where the presenting complaint is so often exhaustion. Alice is certified in psychiatric mental health and in family practice, and she trained under psychiatrist Dr. Errol Segall, MD, who has more than 50 years of clinical experience. The family practice side means thyroid function, anemia, sleep apnea, perimenopause, and drug interactions get examined rather than waved past, which is exactly what fatigue and brain fog require.
Rates are published and flat: $400 for the 60 minute initial visit, $200 for a 30 minute follow-up, $250 for a 45 minute follow-up. No membership, no hidden fees. Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, Medicare, and Medicaid are accepted, with coverage verified before the first appointment. See the rates page, or read more about Alice. Care is available fully in English or fully in Tiếng Việt with no interpreter.
Aurora Highlands sits between the towers and the Pike, and patients come from both. Alice also sees adults in Pentagon City, Crystal City, Columbia Pike, Courthouse, Clarendon, and throughout Arlington, along with Alexandria, Falls Church, and Fairfax. Telehealth covers the whole state. For one subject in depth rather than one place, see ADHD treatment in Arlington, anxiety treatment in Arlington, or insomnia treatment in Virginia.
No. There is no office in Aurora Highlands and none anywhere in Arlington. The practice is at 3060 Williams Drive, Suite 300, Fairfax, VA 22031, in the Merrifield area, with free on-site parking. Aurora Highlands is a community Alice serves, and for almost everyone here that happens by video.
Both are possible and the first job is telling them apart. Sleep fragmented by noise looks different from insomnia driven by a mood or anxiety disorder, and both look different from untreated sleep apnea. Alice takes a full sleep history at the evaluation. If the answer points toward a sleep study rather than a prescription, she will say so and help you get there.
It counts. Watching a familiar place get rebuilt around you produces something close to grief, and it is usually dismissed as being difficult about progress. Naming it accurately tends to make it more manageable, and it is worth checking whether it has been sitting on top of a depression that predates the cranes.
Medication for sleep is available, but it is rarely the opening move. Sedatives can mask the reason the sleep broke in the first place, and some of them get harder to stop the longer they run. The usual sequence is to find the cause, treat that, and use a sleep medication deliberately and for a defined stretch if it is still needed.
No, and it is better to say that plainly than to waste your time. This practice treats adults 18 to 65. Beyond that range, care is often better handled by a clinician who works in geriatric psychiatry, where cognition, polypharmacy, and medical complexity are the daily work. If you call, the office can point you toward more appropriate options.
Treatment here has to end when you are no longer physically in Virginia during visits, because the license is a Virginia license. Alice will not simply stop mid-course. She will write a summary of what was tried and what worked, arrange enough medication to bridge the gap, and coordinate with whoever picks up your care in the new state.
Often yes. Stress was a reasonable explanation at the time and it may still be part of the picture, but conditions declare themselves gradually and a fifteen minute conversation a decade ago is not a settled verdict. A 60 minute evaluation exists precisely to revisit that with the full history in front of you.
Helpful, not required. What matters most is a list of what you have taken, roughly what dose, roughly when, what helped, and what side effects made you stop. A photograph of your pill bottles covers most of it. If formal records would genuinely change the plan, Alice will ask you to request them afterward.
Yes, and it is a legitimate goal rather than a failure. Coming off something safely means tapering at a pace your body tolerates, knowing which symptoms are withdrawal and which are the condition returning, and having a plan if the second one happens. Nobody is going to talk you into staying on a medication indefinitely without a reason.
Call or text (703) 791-9099 or email info@alicetrannp.com and describe what is happening. Messages are answered during business hours, Monday through Thursday, 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern, and an earlier appointment can be arranged when something needs a real conversation. If a reaction is severe or frightening, that is an emergency room matter, not a message.
Usually it makes it easier. Being able to see a face straight on, close up, and well lit does more for comprehension than a telephone ever could, which is one of several reasons visits are by video and never by phone. Headphones help, and Alice will slow down or repeat anything without being asked twice.
Neither. Alice provides care fully in English or fully in Tiếng Việt herself, so there is no interpreter to schedule, no interpreter fee, and no extra time lost to relaying sentences. The rates are the same either way: $400 for the 60 minute evaluation and $200 or $250 for follow-ups.
More general questions are covered on the FAQ page.
Booking online takes a few minutes, or call or text (703) 791-9099 if you would rather ask something first. Email is info@alicetrannp.com. New patients are generally seen within one to two weeks, no referral is required, and your insurance is verified before the first appointment. This practice is not a crisis service. If you are unsafe, call or text 988.
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Many people searching for a psychiatrist in Aurora Highlands end up here, so it is worth being clear about who you would be seeing. Alice Tran is a board certified Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner (PMHNP-BC), not a psychiatrist. For outpatient care in Virginia that distinction matters less than most people expect: she evaluates and diagnoses mental health conditions, prescribes and manages psychiatric medication including ADHD medication, and provides supportive therapy.
The practical differences tend to favor the patient. Psychiatrist offices in this area commonly quote waits of one to three months and many do not take insurance. This practice usually sees new patients within one to two weeks, accepts most major plans including Medicare and Medicaid, and gives every new patient a full 60 minute first appointment. Alice also trained under psychiatrist Dr. Errol Segall, MD, who brings over 50 years of clinical experience.
Want the full comparison? Read what a PMHNP is or how a PMHNP and a psychiatrist differ in Virginia.