Important: This page provides general information, not medical or legal advice, a diagnosis, or a guarantee of services, coverage, cost, availability, or a particular privacy outcome. Policies and benefits can change. Consult a qualified professional for personal guidance and verify coverage and costs with the provider and health plan. Do not delay emergency help to check coverage.
Getting Started
How to Start Anxiety Care in Southern West Virginia
How to start anxiety care at Southern Highlands: scheduling, what happens at intake, insurance and sliding fee scale, telehealth, and clinic locations in Mercer, McDowell, and Wyoming counties.
If you want to start care for anxiety in southern West Virginia, the first questions are usually practical ones. Where do you go? What does it cost? Do you need a referral? What actually happens at the first appointment?
This is a getting-started guide. It explains how to contact Southern Highlands, prepare for intake, and work through common barriers such as cost, distance, and scheduling.
What it doesn’t do is tell you what treatment you need. Whether counseling, medication, both, or something else makes sense for you is a decision for a licensed clinician who has evaluated you, not for a website. You can read an overview of anxiety disorders and care available at Southern Highlands. For general information about anxiety disorders, the National Institute of Mental Health publishes plain-language material at nimh.nih.gov.
How to make an appointment
Call Southern Highlands at (304) 425-9541 and ask to schedule an appointment. You do not need a referral from a doctor.
You can also walk into a clinic during business hours and ask to get scheduled. Front office staff can take your information and tell you what the next available options are.
If making the call feels like the hard part, ask someone you trust to sit with you while you do it. Plenty of people get started that way.
What happens at the first appointment
The first visit is an assessment. A clinician will ask about what brought you in, how long it’s been going on, what you’ve already tried, what your days look like, and what you want to be different.
There’s paperwork too: contact information, insurance, medical history, consent forms. It helps to show up a little early for that part.
At the end of the assessment, the clinician talks with you about what services are available and what the next step looks like. Decisions about treatment happen there, in person, with someone who has actually met you.
For a broader preparation checklist, see the first visit guide.
What to bring
- A photo ID
- Your insurance card, if you have one (WV Medicaid, Medicare, or private)
- A list of the medications you currently take
- Names and phone numbers of other providers you see
- If you don’t have insurance, documentation of household income so the sliding fee scale can be applied
If you’re not sure what applies to your situation, ask when you call. Nobody expects you to have it all sorted out before you walk in.
What Southern Highlands offers
Southern Highlands is a Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic (CCBHC) serving Mercer, McDowell, and Wyoming counties. Anxiety is one of the conditions treated through outpatient services, which include counseling and psychiatric services, along with care coordination that helps tie your care together. You can also review the center’s individual and group therapy services.
Which of those services you use is something that comes out of your assessment, not something you have to figure out ahead of time.
Getting to appointments in a rural county
Distance is a real barrier here. Long drives on two-lane roads, winter weather, one vehicle in the household, no public transit to speak of. It keeps people from starting care and it keeps people from staying in care.
Telehealth is available. Appointments can be done by video, and when the internet is unreliable, a phone call can work instead. That takes the drive out of it entirely for a lot of people.
If getting to the clinic is your main obstacle, say so when you call. That’s useful information for the person scheduling you.
Scheduling around work
Shift work, mine schedules, hourly jobs where missing half a day costs you real money. Daytime weekday appointments don’t fit everyone.
Ask about the scheduling options at the location nearest you when you call. It’s a reasonable question and it’s better to ask up front than to book something you’ll have to cancel.
Paying for care
Southern Highlands participates in West Virginia Medicaid and Medicare and may participate with commercial plans. Coverage, network status, authorization, and cost-sharing vary by service and plan.
If you don’t have insurance, there is a sliding fee scale based on household income. The front office can tell you what documentation you’ll need to bring so the fee can be set correctly.
Cost is worth asking about directly when you call rather than assuming the answer. People talk themselves out of care over a number they never actually confirmed.
Where the clinics are
Southern Highlands serves three counties in southern West Virginia:
- Mercer County — Princeton
- McDowell County — Welch
- Wyoming County — the Pineville, Mullens, and Rockview area
If one location is easier for you to reach than the one closest to your address, you can ask to be scheduled there.
If you’ve been to counseling before and it didn’t help
That’s common enough that it’s worth saying out loud when you call.
Fit matters. So does timing, and so does whether the schedule was workable in the first place. If a previous experience didn’t go anywhere, tell the intake staff what happened. That’s information they can use.
You can also ask to be scheduled with a different counselor at any point. You don’t need a reason beyond “it isn’t working for me.”
The “I should be able to handle this myself” problem
A lot of people in southern West Virginia grew up with the idea that you deal with your own business. Asking for help can feel like admitting something.
Here’s the practical version: making an appointment is not a diagnosis and it isn’t a commitment to anything. It’s an evaluation. You go in, you talk to someone, and you find out what’s available. What you do after that is your call.
If you need help right now
If you are in crisis, don’t wait for an appointment.
- Southern Highlands crisis line: 1-800-615-0122, available 24 hours a day
- 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline — call or text 988, or visit 988lifeline.org
- 911 if someone is in immediate physical danger
- You can also go to the Crisis Stabilization Unit
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a referral?
No. Call (304) 425-9541 and ask to schedule.
Do I need a diagnosis before I call?
No. Sorting that out is what the assessment is for. You don’t need to arrive with a label or an explanation.
How do I know if I need counseling, medication, or both?
That’s a question for the clinician who evaluates you. It isn’t something you can settle from a website, and it isn’t something you have to decide before scheduling.
What if I can’t afford it?
Southern Highlands participates in West Virginia Medicaid and Medicare and may participate with commercial plans. Coverage, network status, authorization, and cost-sharing vary by service and plan. Qualifying uninsured patients can ask about the sliding fee scale.
Can I do appointments from home?
Telehealth is available by video, and by phone when video isn’t practical. Ask about it when you schedule.
What if I don’t like my counselor?
Ask to be scheduled with someone else. Fit matters, and switching is a normal request.
To request an appointment, call Southern Highlands at (304) 425-9541. Clinics serve Mercer, McDowell, and Wyoming counties, and you can contact the clinic directly. A health plan or particular service may apply referral, authorization, eligibility, or medical-necessity rules. Southern Highlands participates in West Virginia Medicaid and Medicare and may participate with commercial plans; coverage, network status, and cost-sharing vary. Qualifying uninsured patients can ask whether the sliding fee scale applies.
For general information about anxiety disorders and mental health treatment, see the National Institute of Mental Health or SAMHSA.