Second-opinion psychiatrist for complex cases in New York
"I don't fit neatly into one box"
For people carrying several diagnoses or a long medication list, or wondering whether it's okay to ask for a second opinion.
Dr. Kavin Fatehchand, MD-PhD
MD-PhD psychiatrist — New York
What if complicated just means we haven't understood the story yet?
- Second opinions
- Whole life narrative
- Less-is-more prescribing
Dr. Kavin Fatehchand, MD-PhD
MD-PhD psychiatrist — New York
Where I Focus
Diagnostic Reevaluation
Co-Occurring Conditions
Medication Simplification
Care Coordination
Psychiatric second opinion in New York
When the Usual Answers Fail, a Hard Case Needs a Scientist's Logic
MD-PhD training taught me to keep asking what the evidence actually supports — not to add another prescription, or another label, when the last one didn't land.
A psychiatric second opinion is an independent look at your diagnosis and treatment by a psychiatrist who isn't your current doctor — and asking for one is normal, expected, something psychiatrists are trained to expect, not a betrayal of anyone. "I have a lot going on at once and it all overlaps" is what I hear from most people who find me this way. As a concierge psychiatrist for complex cases, I don't hand you off between a prescriber and a therapist — I do both, together, with one story. And often what looks untreatable is really an incomplete or incorrect picture: several diagnoses stacked, one prescription treating the side effect of another. Two things can be true: your current doctor can be doing careful work, and an independent second look can still help.
Need to Be Seen Soon?
Same-day visits happen when available.
The Concierge Difference
How a Second Opinion on a Complex Psychiatric Case Actually Works
A routine visit runs fifteen minutes and inherits whatever came before it. A complex case — or an honest second opinion — needs time, a fresh look, and a doctor who stays.
Careful reasoning takes time — you can't run a differential in fifteen minutes, or read a pattern in one visit. Longer visits and the same doctor across the arc let me test what's driving a hard case and see how it actually responds. It's a process, and I stay for it.
I don't inherit old labels as facts. We reexamine the whole life narrative and prior diagnoses together — what fits, what never did, what's actually driving this. Reevaluation takes patience, and it's worth it.
I talk with your therapist, primary care, and other specialists so care isn't fragmented, and if you decide to stay with your current psychiatrist afterward, that's a fine outcome. Often a second opinion starts with an honest psychiatric medication review: peeling back a stacked regimen carefully, over time, one deliberate change at a time.
If you're curious, let's talk
Leave a number and a little of your story — I'll reach out, and we can start with a real conversation instead of a rushed intake.
Not for emergencies: call 911, or call or text 988.
What I Sit With
These are situations inside a life — not labels to slot you into.
"Nothing has worked"
The long medication list
Years of feeling misread
Depression and anxiety that won't lift
Trauma, ADHD, substance use together
The body in the picture
A second opinion
"One more try"
One more time
Maybe you've kind of given up — but you want to try one more time?
Complex stories don't untangle in a single visit. They improve over time, once we understand the whole picture together — biology, trauma, the systems you live in.
The first step is understanding your whole story, not managing a symptom. If you're curious, let's talk.
Diagnostic reconciliation and medication review
When Nothing Has Worked, a Second Opinion Starts With the Story — Not the Label
When someone arrives for a second opinion after years of medications that never quite landed, I don't inherit the diagnosis — I re-open it. Was the original formulation right? Diagnostic reevaluation is where I start, because a label carried forward for a decade may not fit the person sitting with me now. Then I walk the whole medication history: what was tried, at what dose, for how long? So often what got called failure was a trial too low or too short to ever have worked.
What's driving this — and what's been missed? Trauma, ADHD, substance use, and quiet medical, sleep, hormonal, or neurological contributors get overlooked when appointments run fifteen minutes and patients get handed off. I rule those out, involve family and collateral history, and coordinate with your therapist and primary care so nobody is prescribing against each other. Where a regimen is stacked — one drug treating another's side effect — I simplify.
What happens after a second opinion? Sometimes nothing changes about who treats you, and you go back to the psychiatrist you already trust. Other times people choose to continue the work with me. Either way, the point was never to take over your care.
Questions People Ask Before We Begin
Reach Out To Learn More
If you've been thinking "my case is complicated and rushed appointments don't cut it," you're exactly who I built this practice for. Bring your full history — the medications that stacked up, the diagnoses that never quite fit, the parts no one had time to hear. We'll make sense of it together, at a pace that fits your life. And if you're worn down because "I'm tired of being passed around between doctors," that discontinuity is the thing I mean to change. Start with a conversation.
About the Practice
About Dr. Kavin Fatehchand
An MD-PhD who reasons like a scientist about a hard case — asking what the evidence actually supports before reaching for the next prescription.
I'm Dr. Kavin Fatehchand — an MD-PhD psychiatrist in New York City. Before psychiatry, I spent years of doctoral research asking one question: what's actually driving this? I ask the same thing about symptoms. My training leaned heavily psychodynamic — understanding the patterns that formed early — alongside work with people through a first episode of psychosis, some of the most delicate care there is.
I'm queer and South Asian, and I say so plainly — because I want you to know who's in the room. Representation is the first step, never an assumption about your story. For complicated cases, continuity is everything: the person who knows you well is the person who helps you through.
