Alicia Salzer MD

Overpriced, overconfident, and caused a good friend more harm than good. Do not see her

Dr. Salzer came recommended to me by someone I highly respect. She’s very observant, detailed, organized, sharp, and somewhat compassionate. There are a lot of things that I really like about Dr. Salzer and I’m glad that I came to see her when I did. Take this review with a grain of salt as I’m new to the whole psychiatry/​mental health thing.
I think mental health is one of those things people ignore until they really need to do something about it and if you’ve been unfortunate enough to immediately need someone to talk to, you know that psychiatrists (those that can prescribe you magic pills) that accept your insurance are like unicorns. ZocDoc lists only a handful of them and most don’t accept insurance at all. If you’re lucky enough to find one that accepts your insurance, there’s about a 2 to 4-​week waiting list before you can see them for the first time, if not longer (and not all of them are accepting new patients. A couple of them never actually returned my call!). It’s like trying to find a senior software engineer in the Bay Area.
Dr. Salzer was able to see me within a week and she’s very up front about how much she charges per session, payment methods, and what to expect from the first session. She doesn’t accept insurance (you can still submit them for out-​of-​network coverage). She also has a great schedule that allowed me to see her on a short notice. What I don’t like is that I felt really nickel and dimed. The first couple sessions are useful, but I felt almost immediately better after starting on a small dose of happy pills. Even though my meds were working effectively for me with negligible side effect, she insisted on seeing me once a month, which is more frequent than most (typically, shrinks insist on quarterly or even twice-​a-​year check-​ins once you’re on meds that work for you).
So, yes, I would recommend Dr. Salzer if you need to see someone soon while waiting for an in-​network shrink, but be prepared to pay $ 300+ for the session.