12/31/2025
Changes
Working in the fields of social work, pastoral care, and mental health for the past 35 years, I have learned one undeniable truth: most people don’t like change. Yet change is constant—sometimes within our control, and often completely outside of it.
I’m reminded of the insight captured by the band Tesla in their 1986 release Changes. Songwriters Frank Hannon, Tom Skeoch, Troy Luccketta, Brian Wheat, and Jeffrey Keith beautifully portray how time reshapes our lives:
“Changes, time's making changes in my life.
Rearranging, always changing; can't seem to stop the hands of time.
I remember, I was so young… Now I'm older; and I see things differently.”
If you haven’t heard the song in a while, I encourage you to look it up and enjoy its simple, timeless truth: everything changes.
The author of Ecclesiastes reminds us that “there is a season for everything” (Ecclesiastes 3:1–8). Each season—joy or sorrow, building or letting go, peace or struggle—has a purpose and unfolds in God’s timing. To me, seasons are just another way of understanding change.
With that in mind, I want to share some significant changes taking place in both my personal life and in my practice, Urgent Care Counseling, LLC.
When I founded UCC in 2011 as a ministry outreach—a trauma-informed mental health facility open 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, offering same-day appointments and access to a psychiatric provider Monday through Friday—it seemed like an impossible goal. A preacher in debt “past his earlobes,” with no grants or outside funding, shouldn’t have been able to launch a program like that. But with careful planning, faith, and the early support of a committed psychiatrist and a dedicated ARNP, the vision became reality.
For several years it flourished—until a medical crisis changed everything for Urgent Care Counseling and Psychiatric Services, LLC. In 2014, due to the difficulty of recruiting psychiatric providers without large-agency benefits, I removed “Psychiatric Services” from the practice name. Over the past 15 years, many psychiatric providers and ten additional mental health practitioners spent time serving alongside me. Together we facilitated groups, supported new clinicians as they transitioned from school to licensure, and even walked with colleagues through retirement. Each one experienced profound growth and change while working with our clients.
Over the years, UCC has been housed in commercial buildings, church offices, community psychiatric centers, and for the past 11 years, at our location on Rowan Road in New Port Richey. Through every change in location and every shift in personnel, one thing has never changed: my mission to provide compassionate, confidential, professional, and person-centered mental health care to every individual seeking support.
That mission will not change.
What is changing is how services will be delivered.
Beginning January 1, 2026, Urgent Care Counseling, LLC will no longer provide in-office, brick-and-mortar sessions. All psychotherapy services will be offered exclusively via telehealth.
Our office has officially relocated.
Our phone number remains the same: 727-505-0976.
Appointments will continue to be available Monday through Friday, 9 AM–9 PM, by appointment only.
Our website is www.urgentcarecounseling.com, and I can be reached at richard@urgentcarecounseling.com.
These changes are necessary to continue accepting insurance reimbursement, EAP services, and other third-party payments. Like many know all too well, today’s economy is challenging. In mental health and social services, reimbursement rates have not increased in more than a decade—many have even decreased—making it increasingly difficult to sustain the costs of physical office space and overhead. Telehealth allows me to continue offering accessible, ethical, and high-quality care to the community.
I truly hope that longtime clients, as well as those who may seek services in the future, will embrace this new season with me.
Another positive change in Pasco County is the expansion of BayCare Behavioral Health, which has received grant funding to provide same-day outpatient psychiatric services to the community. This is a blessing—and a vision I held for over 20 years. I am grateful to see it becoming a reality in the community I have proudly served since 2001.
Wishing all my Facebook readers a very Happy New Year.
May this season of change bring growth, healing, and hope to you and your families.
— Richard Fincke, LMHC
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