Ascend does not dose ketamine in St. Petersburg. There is one treatment suite and it is at 27724 Cashford Circle, Suite 102, Wesley Chapel, FL 33544. If you are reading this from 33701 or 33703, the real question is not whether the treatment exists nearby, because it does not. The question is whether the ride arrangement is something you can actually organize six times. The evaluation that decides whether ketamine is appropriate at all happens by Florida telehealth first, so you find out before arranging anything. What would be administered is a compounded preparation that is not FDA-approved, covered in full below. Call (813) 670-3005 or book a consultation.
What telehealth can and cannot do for this service
The split is not arbitrary and it is worth understanding before you book anything. The psychiatric evaluation works well by video. A structured history, a medication reconciliation, symptom scales, a risk assessment and the consent discussion all transfer without loss, and being at home often produces a more accurate account than a clinic room does, because the records are in the next drawer rather than remembered approximately.
What does not transfer is everything physical. Blood pressure taken at the moment of dosing, a pulse that can be watched rather than reported, pupillary and gait observations, and the continuous presence of someone who can intervene are not reproducible over a connection, and they are the reason a dosing session is an in-person appointment. A video call also cannot confirm what state you are actually in at the end of a dose, which is the specific judgment that decides when you are cleared to leave.
There is a regulatory floor underneath the clinical one. Ketamine is a Schedule III controlled substance, the preparation used here is compounded and not FDA-approved, and nothing is dispensed for you to take away or self-administer. Services that mail a compounded preparation for unsupervised use have been the subject of public safety warnings, and Ascend does not operate that way at any distance. So the honest answer is that St. Petersburg patients can complete the assessment, the medication review and the decision entirely from home, and the dosing sessions themselves happen in one room in Wesley Chapel.
Continuity, and why the same prescriber matters clinically
The most common structural difference between practices offering ketamine is who is in the room. In many settings the person who assesses you is not the person who doses you, and the person who doses you changes between visits. That arrangement is workable for a procedure with a fixed protocol. It is a poor fit for a treatment where the dose is adjusted on the basis of what was observed last time.
Anna Stouffer conducts the evaluation, sets the plan, is present for the dosing sessions and reviews the response afterward. The practical value of that shows up in small observations that do not survive a handoff: how long the active window ran last time, whether nausea appeared at a particular point, whether the dissociative experience was tolerable or distressing, how the days between sessions went. Those details are what a dose adjustment is actually made from, and a note written by one clinician for another loses most of them.
It matters at the end of the series too. Deciding whether a partial response is worth building on, or whether ketamine should be set aside in favor of something else, is a judgment made from having watched the whole arc rather than from reading a summary of it. Because this is a full psychiatric practice rather than a single-service clinic, that alternative conversation continues here instead of sending you back out to start again.
If your history runs through the VA
Pinellas County contains the Bay Pines VA Healthcare System, and a meaningful share of the St. Petersburg patients who reach this page have a treatment record that runs partly or wholly through VA or TRICARE-affiliated care. Bring it. It is the most useful thing you can arrive with, and it usually shortens the evaluation rather than lengthening it.
What matters is the specifics: which medications were tried, at what doses, for how long, what happened, and whether you completed a course of trauma-focused therapy such as prolonged exposure or EMDR. Ketamine is considered alongside continued therapy rather than as a substitute for it, so a record showing therapy was genuinely attempted changes the conversation. Mention any current prescriber by name so coordination can happen rather than being assumed.
Anna Stouffer, MS, PMHNP-BC, FNP-BC runs the evaluation and directs every session afterward, and she is dual board-certified in psychiatric-mental health and family practice, so the cardiovascular and medication review happens in the same appointment rather than as a separate clearance. Costs are covered when we call you back rather than published, because they depend on what the evaluation concludes.
What it is evaluated for, and what the PTSD evidence actually says
Treatment-resistant depression, generally an inadequate response to two or more antidepressants at therapeutic doses and adequate duration, remains the primary and most studied indication. PTSD is evaluated after trauma-focused therapy and first-line medication. Severe treatment-resistant anxiety, OCD, bipolar depression and select chronic pain conditions are each assessed individually on thinner evidence. None are treated as certain to respond.
On PTSD specifically, the honest summary is that the research is genuinely mixed and you deserve to hear it from us rather than find it later. A randomized controlled trial of repeated administration for chronic PTSD (Feder A, et al., American Journal of Psychiatry, 2021) reported a greater reduction in symptom severity across six doses over two weeks than a midazolam control. A larger multi-center trial in veterans and active-duty service members (Abdallah CG, et al., Neuropsychopharmacology, 2022) did not find a significant PTSD benefit over placebo. Both are real, both are recent, and neither settles the question, and neither changes the fact that ketamine is not FDA-approved for PTSD. A consensus statement developed with the American Psychiatric Association (Sanacora G, et al., JAMA Psychiatry, 2017) sets out how findings like these should and should not translate into clinical practice.
That mixed picture is exactly what the required evaluation is for: deciding candidly whether you are a reasonable candidate, setting expectations you can hold us to, and building a follow-up plan that measures whether anything is actually changing.
The compounded preparation and its approval status
Ketamine is not FDA-approved to treat depression, PTSD, anxiety, OCD, or chronic pain. The preparation used at Ascend is compounded, which means a pharmacy assembles it rather than a manufacturer producing a finished, reviewed product, and a compounded medication is not FDA-approved for any use whatsoever. The agency has not assessed this medication for safety, for effectiveness, or for manufacturing quality. None of that is buried in a consent form; you will hear it during the evaluation with time to ask about it.
Because it is not FDA-approved, and because ketamine is a Schedule III controlled substance with recognized potential for misuse and dependence, the practice takes two positions worth stating plainly. Nothing is mailed to you and no supply is handed over for self-administration at home; the agency has issued public warnings about precisely that practice, and declining it is deliberate. And how often you dose is set by the clinic and revisited at every follow-up rather than continuing on an open-ended schedule.
There is also a limit on how far the research transfers. Most published trials used infusion administration rather than the subcutaneous route given here. The inference is reasonable, but it is an inference, and we would rather name it than let you assume the studies tested exactly what you would receive. The compounded preparation used here is not FDA-approved whichever way the research is read.
Inside a session
Budget about two hours from arrival to discharge. Check-in and baseline vital signs take roughly fifteen minutes. The subcutaneous injection is a single small injection rather than a line that stays in for the duration. Active dose time runs forty to sixty minutes in a recliner in a private room, with an eye mask and headphones available. Recovery observation adds twenty to thirty minutes before you are released to your driver. Blood pressure, heart rate and your overall response are watched continuously rather than sampled. The preparation given is compounded and not FDA-approved, and the monitoring wrapped around it is the reason this is a clinical procedure rather than a handover.
Most people describe something dreamlike: detachment from the body, altered sense of time, sometimes mild visual changes or a floating sensation. That is anticipated, which is why nobody is left on their own. Nausea, dizziness, brief rises in heart rate or blood pressure, and later fatigue or headache are the usual transient effects and generally resolve before discharge.
When the answer is no
Severe or uncontrolled cardiovascular disease, uncontrolled hypertension, active psychosis or a documented primary psychotic disorder, active or untreated substance use disorders, and pregnancy are reviewed at evaluation and any of them can rule this out. Bring a full current medication list including supplements; benzodiazepines, stimulants, several blood pressure medications and MAOIs all get discussed, and mood stabilizers call for closer coordination rather than exclusion.
There is also a timing no. If first-line medication and therapy have not had a fair trial, if you are in acute crisis, or if you want a single session rather than a structured series, the honest answer is usually that something else comes first. Ketamine therapy is scheduled care assessed over weeks. If you are in immediate danger, call or text 988.
Questions we get from St. Pete
Why is there no St. Pete location for this?
No. Ascend has a single ketamine site, in Wesley Chapel, and no dosing location anywhere in Pinellas County. St. Petersburg patients are evaluated through the practice, usually by Florida telehealth, and are seen at Wesley Chapel for the dosing sessions themselves. We would rather be blunt about that on this page than let you discover it after booking.
Does ketamine interact with the medications I already take?
Some do, which is why a complete list including anything over the counter is requested at the evaluation. Regular benzodiazepine use is the interaction discussed most often and the timing is worth planning rather than guessing at. Several blood pressure medications matter because ketamine can transiently raise heart rate and blood pressure during the active window. MAOIs and stimulants are reviewed for the same reason. Lithium and other mood stabilizers are not a barrier to an evaluation, but they do call for closer coordination with whoever prescribes them now. Mention anything taken irregularly as well, because an as-needed medication is the one most often left off a list.
I was treated through the VA. Does that history transfer?
It helps considerably. Bring the medication record and any documentation of trauma-focused therapy you completed. Ascend is not a VA facility and cannot bill VA benefits, but a detailed prior treatment record makes the evaluation faster and the recommendation more accurate.
Does ketamine work for PTSD?
The evidence is mixed rather than settled. One randomized controlled trial of repeated administration reported a greater reduction in chronic PTSD symptom severity than an active control; a larger multi-center trial in veterans and active-duty service members did not find a significant benefit over placebo. It is evaluated for PTSD, usually alongside continued therapy rather than instead of it, and individual responses vary. Anyone telling you the question is resolved is overselling it.
Can I bring my own driver, or do you arrange one?
You arrange it. A friend, a partner or a rideshare all work; what does not work is driving yourself, and the team confirms your arrangement at check-in before any medication is given. If you are using a rideshare, book it at discharge rather than in advance, because recovery observation does not end at a fixed time.
Is this covered by insurance?
The ketamine sessions themselves generally are not. Coverage for racemic ketamine is inconsistent and usually out of network, and we do not bill insurance for them. The psychiatric consultation may be partially covered by in-network psychiatric benefits depending on your plan. Our insurance and payment page explains what can be verified in advance.
The full dosing-day walkthrough and provider detail sit on the Wesley Chapel ketamine page, which is the location where treatment is actually given. For the service-wide overview see ketamine therapy at Ascend.
References
- Feder A, Costi S, Rutter SB, et al. A randomized controlled trial of repeated ketamine administration for chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. American Journal of Psychiatry. 2021;178(2):193-202.
- Abdallah CG, Roache JD, Averill LA, et al. Dose-related effects of ketamine for antidepressant-resistant symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder in veterans and active duty military: a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled multi-center clinical trial. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2022;47(8):1574-1581.
- Sanacora G, Frye MA, McDonald W, et al. A consensus statement on the use of ketamine in the treatment of mood disorders. JAMA Psychiatry. 2017;74(4):399-405.