California Tech Workers

Ketamine Therapy for California Tech WorkersDepression, Anxiety, Clinical Burnout

Physician-led at-home ketamine therapy for engineers, founders, and everyone else keeping California's tech industry running — when the depression or anxiety underneath the burnout hasn't responded to the standard playbook. Board-certified, $250/month, sessions on your schedule.

Board-certified physician (Dr. Ben Soffer, DO) — single prescriber continuity
Evening and next-day telehealth consultations — no clinic commute
Private medical care: nothing routes through your employer
HSA/FSA eligible — pretax dollars accepted
Compatible with most SSRIs, SNRIs, and prescribed stimulants (screened at intake)
Free 2-day medication delivery anywhere in California

California residents — start your eligibility check

Serving all 58 California counties, plus Florida and New Jersey

When burnout stops being burnout

The tech industry has a vocabulary problem: everything is "burnout." The on-call rotations, the layoff cycles that leave survivors doing three jobs, the vesting schedules that make leaving feel impossible, the founder years where the company's survival and your own feel like the same thing. Rest fixes actual burnout. But when a sabbatical, a job change, and a year of therapy have come and gone and the flatness is still there — the inability to feel excited about anything, the 3 AM dread, the sense of watching your own life through glass — that is usually not burnout anymore. It is depression or an anxiety disorder wearing burnout's clothes, and it deserves to be treated as the medical condition it is.

Ketamine's evidence base is strongest exactly here: depression and anxiety that have not responded adequately to two or more conventional treatments. Response rates in the treatment-resistant population run 60-70% in the clinical literature, with improvement measured in days rather than the 4-6 weeks of a new SSRI trial. The mechanism — glutamate-driven neuroplasticity — is a different lever entirely from serotonin, which is why prior SSRI failure does not predict ketamine failure.

And the format fits the life. The consultation is a video visit you can take from home after standup. The sessions happen in your own space, scheduled around your sprint, with two hard rules: no driving for the rest of that day and the following day, and no work after a session. No commute across the Bay Bridge to sit in a clinic chair.

How this works around a tech schedule

1

Eligibility check (5 minutes)

A short medical questionnaire screens for the standard contraindications — uncontrolled hypertension, active psychosis, certain cardiac conditions, current substance use disorder. Stimulant prescriptions and a heavy caffeine habit are discussion points, not automatic exclusions.

2

Telehealth consultation with Dr. Soffer

A 30-minute video visit — next-day availability in most cases, with times shown in Pacific time. Full medical history, medication audit, CURES database check, and an honest conversation about whether what you're carrying is clinical. If at-home ketamine isn't the right fit, you'll hear that too.

3

Medication shipped to your door

Our PCAB-accredited California compounding pharmacy ships sublingual tablets or troches in unmarked packaging, free 2-day delivery — Mission District apartment or Tahoe remote-work cabin alike.

4

Sessions on your calendar, not a clinic's

A typical course is 10+ guided sessions over 4-8 weeks, each scheduled for an evening before a lighter day. Dr. Soffer remains reachable for dose adjustments and follow-up throughout — the same physician, every time.

What separates this from a sketchy telehealth clinic

A named, board-certified physician

Dr. Ben Soffer, DO — board-certified in internal medicine, licensed in California by the Osteopathic Medical Board of California (License 20A25771, verifiable through the DCA license search). Every patient is reviewed personally before any prescription is issued.

Real screening, not a growth funnel

The intake covers your full medical and psychiatric history, current medications including stimulants, cardiovascular history, and California's CURES prescription-database check. Patients with disqualifying conditions are referred out, not converted. See our contraindications guide.

California licensed compounding pharmacy

Medication is compounded by a California-resident, PCAB-accredited pharmacy. Not imported, not gray-market, not from offshore suppliers.

Common questions from tech workers

Will my employer find out about ketamine treatment?

Treatment through Discreet Ketamine is private medical care under standard medical-privacy law, and California adds the Confidentiality of Medical Information Act (CMIA) on top of HIPAA. Your employer is not notified, and nothing is billed through employer-sponsored insurance unless you choose to submit a superbill yourself. Medication arrives in unmarked packaging. If your role carries specific medical reporting obligations, those obligations are yours to follow — we simply never make that decision for you.

Is burnout actually treatable with ketamine?

Burnout itself is an occupational phenomenon, not a diagnosis — and when rest and time off fix it, that's the right treatment. What we treat is what burnout often turns out to be underneath: treatment-resistant depression or an anxiety disorder that months of "recovery" haven't touched. If you've taken the sabbatical, done the therapy, tried an SSRI or two, and the flatness or dread is still there, that's the clinical picture where ketamine's evidence base applies.

I'm on call. How does the no-driving rule work?

Sessions require the rest of that day and the following day without driving, and you shouldn't be making high-stakes decisions in the hours after a session. Most tech patients schedule sessions for the evening before a day off, or during a low-stakes stretch of the sprint. If you carry a pager, plan sessions for weeks you're not on rotation. The cadence is flexible — this is a 10+ session course over 4 to 8 weeks, not a daily medication.

Can I keep taking my SSRI, stimulant, or sleep medication?

Usually yes. SSRIs and SNRIs are fully compatible with ketamine therapy. Prescribed stimulants (Adderall, Vyvanse) are generally compatible with appropriate cardiovascular screening — your blood pressure history matters and is part of intake. Benzodiazepines are typically held on session day because they blunt ketamine's mechanism. Every medication is reviewed at your consultation, and California's CURES database check means the physician sees your full controlled-prescription picture.

How is this different from the ketamine clinics in SF and LA?

IV infusion clinics in the Bay Area and Los Angeles commonly charge $400-800 per session, require 6 clinic visits for an induction series, and add a commute plus 2-3 hours per visit. At-home therapy runs $250/month for physician care plus flat-rate medication ($3.50 per dose unit from our California pharmacy, free 2-day shipping), and the sessions happen in your own space on your own schedule. Clinic-based IV remains the right setting for some patients — higher-risk medical histories, certain dosing strategies — and we refer when that's the case.

What does a session actually look like when I work from home?

Plan a quiet evening: no food for 2-3 hours beforehand, phone on do-not-disturb, laptop closed, a trusted person nearby for early sessions. The medication dissolves under the tongue and the experience runs roughly an hour, with an afterglow period where most people journal or rest. You should not return to work, Slack, or code review that day — the neuroplasticity window in the following days is where integration (and honest reflection about work) happens.

Does insurance from a tech employer cover this?

Compounded sublingual ketamine is off-label, and most California plans — including the PPOs common in tech — do not cover it. Two things help: HSA/FSA dollars can typically be used (many tech comp packages include generous HSA contributions), and we provide superbills for out-of-network submission. The all-in monthly cost is usually well below a single infusion-clinic session.

I'm a founder / on a visa / pre-IPO. Is there anything different for me?

Clinically, no — eligibility is about your health history, not your job. Practically, the things patients in these situations value are the scheduling flexibility (evening and next-day consultations), the privacy of care that doesn't route through an employer plan, and a physician who treats the underlying depression or anxiety rather than the job title. If your situation involves specific legal or immigration questions about medical records, those belong with your attorney; your treatment here stays ordinary private medical care.

Ready to see if you qualify?

Five-minute eligibility check. Physician review within 24-48 hours. Medication shipped within a week of approval.

In New Jersey? See /nj/ketamine-for-tech-workers, or read the complete California guide.

    Ketamine Therapy for California Tech Workers: Burnout, Depression, Anxiety | Discreet Ketamine