BOOTCAMP

Frequently Asked Questions

Answers to the questions PMHNPs actually ask — about mentorship, clinical practice, prescribing, documentation, and building a confident career in psychiatric care.

Mentorship & Career

Clinical confidence is built through structured mentorship, consistent practice, and a support system that keeps you accountable. The PsychNP Bootcamp provides all three: 12 core modules, live coaching sessions, case consultation groups, and a peer community of PMHNPs navigating the same transition. Most members experience a significant shift in confidence within their first 60–90 days. Confidence isn't about knowing everything — it's about having systems, mentorship, and community to support your clinical decisions.
In your first 90 days, focus on three things: (1) building a strong psychiatric evaluation framework so your visits are structured and efficient, (2) developing your psychopharmacology knowledge for the diagnoses you'll see most often — depression, anxiety, ADHD, and insomnia, and (3) finding mentorship and community so you're not navigating complex decisions alone. The PsychNP Bootcamp walks you through this exact progression.
A comprehensive PMHNP mentorship program should include structured education, live coaching with an experienced provider, case consultation opportunities, psychopharmacology training, and peer support. The PsychNP Bootcamp includes all of these: 12 core modules, live sessions on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Mondays, The Prescriber's Playbook™ (75+ lectures on 60+ medications), a private Skool community, and 25 ANCC/CE contact hours.
Case consultation groups allow you to present real clinical scenarios and receive structured feedback from experienced providers and peers. This builds diagnostic reasoning, improves prescribing confidence, and exposes you to a wide variety of presentations — far more than you'd encounter in your own patient panel alone. It's one of the fastest ways to develop clinical competence.
Your first 60 days should focus on establishing your workflow systems, learning your organization's protocols, building a psychiatric evaluation template, and connecting with mentorship resources. Avoid the temptation to learn every medication or diagnosis at once — instead, master the most common presentations first and build from there. The PsychNP Bootcamp's early modules are specifically designed for this critical transition period.
The most common mistakes include: trying to learn everything simultaneously instead of building foundational systems, not setting professional boundaries early in practice, under-documenting controlled substance decisions, avoiding psychotherapy integration, and isolating instead of seeking mentorship and community. Each of these is directly addressed in the PsychNP Bootcamp curriculum.

Add-On Psychotherapy & 90833

CPT code 90833 is the add-on psychotherapy code billed alongside an evaluation and management (E/M) service such as 99213 or 99214. It requires a minimum of 16 minutes of psychotherapy delivered during a medication management visit. The psychotherapy component must be distinct from the E/M service and documented separately with its own start/stop times, therapeutic techniques used, and patient response. Lindsay Hill covers 90833 documentation and billing in detail within the PsychNP Bootcamp.
Add-on psychotherapy (90833) qualifies when you deliver at least 16 minutes of evidence-based psychotherapy techniques during a med management visit — such as CBT, DBT skills, motivational interviewing, or supportive psychotherapy. Simple counseling, medication education, or motivational statements alone typically do not meet the threshold. The psychotherapy must address psychological factors contributing to the patient's condition and be documented with specific techniques and patient response.
General medication counseling, discussing side effects, providing psychoeducation about a diagnosis, or brief supportive statements do not qualify as add-on psychotherapy for 90833 billing. The service requires the delivery of a defined psychotherapeutic technique for at least 16 minutes. Documentation must clearly distinguish the psychotherapy from the medication management component of the visit.
Document 90833 by including: (1) separate start and stop times for the psychotherapy component, (2) the specific therapeutic modality used (CBT, DBT, MI, etc.), (3) the therapeutic focus and presenting issues addressed, (4) the patient's response to the intervention, and (5) a treatment plan that integrates both pharmacological and psychotherapeutic approaches. Keep the psychotherapy documentation visually and clinically distinct from your E/M documentation.
Yes, 90833 is commonly billed alongside 99214. Your 99214 documentation covers the E/M component (medication review, assessment, plan), while the 90833 documentation covers the psychotherapy delivered during the same visit. Your note should clearly separate these components. Include the modality (e.g., "CBT-based cognitive restructuring"), time spent (minimum 16 minutes), and the patient's response to the intervention.

Documentation & Clinical Practice

Defensible documentation includes: a thorough mental status exam, clear clinical reasoning connecting assessment to diagnosis to treatment plan, documented risk assessment, informed consent discussions, and medication rationale. Use templates that ensure consistency and avoid shortcuts on controlled substance documentation. The PsychNP Bootcamp includes documentation frameworks and templates designed specifically for psychiatric nurse practitioners.
A psychiatric follow-up note should include: interval history since last visit, medication adherence and response, side effect assessment, updated mental status exam, risk assessment, diagnostic impression, treatment plan changes with rationale, and return visit scheduling. If you're integrating psychotherapy (90833), include separate documentation for that component.
The mental status exam (MSE) should document: appearance, behavior, speech, mood (patient-reported), affect (observed), thought process, thought content (including suicidal/homicidal ideation), perceptions (hallucinations, illusions), cognition, insight, and judgment. Focus on observations that inform your clinical decision-making and document deviations from baseline.
Build templated workflows for your most common visit types, use structured evaluation frameworks during the visit (not after), develop documentation shortcuts that maintain quality, and set a firm boundary around completing notes before your next patient when possible. The PsychNP Bootcamp's workflow organization module specifically addresses time management and documentation efficiency.

Personal Brand & Digital Income for PMHNPs

Start by getting clear on your area of expertise and the audience you want to serve. Share educational content on social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or LinkedIn that demonstrates your knowledge and personality. Be consistent, authentic, and focused on providing genuine value. Building a personal brand as a clinician should always prioritize ethical marketing and clinical integrity.
Ethical digital product sales for clinicians means: creating genuinely valuable educational content, being transparent about what your product does and doesn't include, never making guarantees about clinical outcomes, maintaining scope-of-practice boundaries, and prioritizing the learner's development over revenue. If the product genuinely helps your audience become better providers, selling it is a service — not a compromise.
The best first digital product is one that solves a specific problem your audience consistently asks you about. For PMHNPs, this might be a documentation template bundle, a psychopharm quick-reference guide, or a short video course on a clinical topic you know deeply. Start small, deliver real value, and build from there.

Still Have Questions?

Reach out directly — we’re real people and we’re happy to chat about whether the Bootcamp or Playbook is right for you.

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Lindsay is a doctorally-prepared, board-certified psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner, published thought leader, and the creator of the PsychNP Bootcamp.