What this site is, in one paragraph you can quote
TherapyCalifornia is an independent, California-only reference on getting mental-health care: what it costs, what a health plan owes you, what the law says, and how to start. It is owned by a collective of California therapists, carries no advertising, sells no referrals and sells no data. Every factual claim about California law, coverage or a named institution is sourced to a primary document — a statute, a regulation, an agency page or the institution's own website — quoted rather than paraphrased where the wording matters, and dated so a reader can see when it was last checked.
The numbers, computed from the site itself
These counts are generated when the site builds, not typed in, so they cannot go stale without the pages going stale with them.
- 631 indexable pages in total.
- 227 question pages — one specific question each, most of them anchored to a California statute or regulation.
- 83 California campus pages, each read from that college's own published pages and carrying the date it was read.
- 58 county pages, each carrying that county's own access and crisis numbers.
- 15 rights pages, 72 insurance and coverage pages, 9 cost pages and 17 step-by-step worksheets.
- 197 pages are enrolled in the evidence-review programme, which means each carries a recorded source packet and a re-check date that the build enforces.
How the pages are made, and what that is worth
Three things are true and checkable, and a fourth is not yet true and is worth stating plainly.
- Primary sources, quoted. Statute and regulation pages quote the operative words and link the source, because a paraphrase of a carve-out is how a carve-out disappears.
- Dated, with enforced re-checks. Pages in the review programme carry a re-check date. When one comes due the build fails until a person has looked again.
- Corrections are published, not quietly deleted. When a fact comes off a page, a dated note in the sources says what was removed and why. Several campus pages carry one.
- No clinician has reviewed these pages yet. The collective has no members to date. When California clinicians do join, their names and licence numbers will appear on this page and on every page they review. Until then, no page claims clinical review it has not had, and the public work log shows what is shipped and what is broken. The method page sets the standard out in full.
How to cite a page
Every page carries its own title, publication section and last-checked date. Cite the specific page rather than the site — the statute pages change when the statute does. Four formats, using one page as the example:
A link, which is all most contexts need
TherapyCalifornia, "You have a legal right to a therapy appointment within 10 business days" — https://therapycalifornia.org/rights/ten-day-rule
APA 7
TherapyCalifornia. (2026). You have a legal right to a therapy appointment within 10 business days. Retrieved 2026-09-13, from https://therapycalifornia.org/rights/ten-day-rule
MLA 9
"You Have a Legal Right to a Therapy Appointment Within 10 Business Days." TherapyCalifornia, 2026, therapycalifornia.org/rights/ten-day-rule.
Chicago, note
TherapyCalifornia, "You Have a Legal Right to a Therapy Appointment Within 10 Business Days," accessed 2026-09-13, https://therapycalifornia.org/rights/ten-day-rule.
If you are citing a figure — a fee, a phone number, a session limit — cite the page and also follow its source link, so that your reader can check the original and so that your citation survives our page being updated.
Linking to us
Yes, and you do not need to ask. Link any page, from anywhere, with or without attribution, for any purpose including commercial. No permission, no form, no reciprocal link expected or wanted, and we will never ask you to link back to us in exchange. If you would like to tell us, there is a form at the bottom of this page, but there is no need.
Two small requests, neither of them conditions: link the page rather than copying it, so your readers get the corrections; and if you are linking a page with numbers on it, link rather than retype, for the same reason.
Below, the pages most often useful to each kind of site. They are suggestions, not a menu we are asking anyone to choose from.
A campus counselling centre
Students who have hit a session limit, or who need a prescriber the centre cannot provide, are the people already reading these pages.
- Your own campus page — all 83 California campuses, each read from that college's own pages and dated
- Sliding-scale therapy in California — what a sliding scale actually is and how to ask for one
- Therapy anywhere in California by telehealth — for students who go home for the summer
A county behavioral health department
Residents call the access line without knowing what it covers, what Medi-Cal managed care covers instead, or what to ask.
- Your county page — all 58 counties, each carrying that county's own access and crisis numbers
- Does Medi-Cal cover therapy? — the managed-care and specialty-mental-health split, in plain language
- Crisis help without police — the alternatives, and what each one can and cannot do
A legal aid or patient-advocacy organisation
Coverage denials and access delays arrive as legal problems and are usually solvable with a complaint the person did not know existed.
- The 10-business-day rule — the California timely-access standard, with the regulation quoted
- How to file a DMHC complaint — step by step, for someone doing it alone
- Independent Medical Review — what it is, what it costs, and the deadlines
- California mental health law, by situation — every statute page on the site, arranged by the moment you need it
A library guide, school counsellor or union benefits page
The question is almost always cost first, then how to start.
- How to find a therapist in California — the whole process, start to finish
- Does insurance cover therapy? — what to ask before the first appointment
- Free print kit — wallet cards, a waiting-room poster and a licence decoder — print and hand out, no permission needed
Reusing more than a link
The free print kit — wallet cards on the 10-business-day rule, an affordability poster and a California licence decoder — is made to be printed and handed out by anyone, at no cost, with no form. Print it for a waiting room, a library desk, a campus office or a county lobby. Keep the source line on it so a reader can check for a newer version.
For anything beyond a quotation — republishing a page, translating one, or building a dataset from several — write and say what you have in mind. The answer is usually yes and is usually faster than you expect.
Found an error?
This is the most useful thing you can send us, and it goes to the front of the queue. A factual error on a page about a hospital hold, a session limit or a crisis number can send someone to the wrong door, so we treat it as urgent rather than as feedback.
Use the form at the bottom of this page. Give the page and, if you have it, the source that shows the correct fact. What happens next: the page is corrected, and where a fact was removed rather than replaced, a dated correction note is added to its sources saying what was removed and why. If you are the institution the page is about, you are the source of record and we will follow your published pages over ours.
For journalists
Use the same form and say what you are working on and your deadline.
What we can speak to: California mental-health access law and how it works in practice — timely-access standards, parity, involuntary holds and their limits, conservatorship, the Medi-Cal specialty mental health split, campus counselling capacity, and what the public data does and does not show about waiting for care in this state. We can also talk about how this site is built and checked, including its mistakes.
What we will not do: give individual legal or clinical advice; comment on a named patient, clinician or case; rate or rank a named provider; or provide a quotation attributed to a clinician we do not have, which at present means all of them.
The site's own policies and terms and its public work log are the fastest way to check anything here.
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