Behavioral health credentialing & payer enrollment
Credentialing, enrollment and contracting for substance use disorder treatment facilities, behavioral health groups and individual clinicians. Fifteen years inside addiction treatment operations, not a general-purpose credentialing shop.
Every client gets this, updated as each application moves — so you always know what is in network, what is sitting in a queue, and where a panel is closed.
01 / Why us
Getting one therapist onto a panel is paperwork. Getting a residential SUD program in network is a different job.
Your ASAM levels have to map to the right revenue codes. Your service grid has to match what your DHCS license actually permits — not what you plan to offer next year. Your legal entity name has to match the IRS EIN letter character for character, commas included, or TIN matching fails and the file stalls before a human ever reads it. Check a standalone mental health row at a SUD-only facility and you have bought yourself a rejection and a resubmission.
Most of the delays we get called in to fix started as a small error nobody caught at submission. Ninety days later it surfaces as a deficiency letter, and the clock starts over.
02 / Services
Engagements usually start with enrollment and grow into the operational side — the parts that keep you in network once you are there.
Applications, CAQH profiles, portal and paper submissions, document packets, deficiency responses, escalations, and follow-up until an effective date is assigned and the contract is actually loaded on the payer's side.
Letters of intent, network requests, contract review, rate negotiation, and signature routing. Executed contracts come to us first for review before they reach you, so nothing gets signed that you would want changed.
Aligning DHCS licensure, accreditation and your service grid so that what you submit matches what you are licensed and accredited to deliver. This is where most facility applications quietly go wrong.
Roster management, CAQH reattestation schedules, license and insurance expiration tracking, recredentialing calendars, and demographic or location updates as your program changes.
Entity structure and naming, EIN and NPI setup, and payer strategy decided before you open — the choices that are cheap to make correctly and expensive to undo two years in.
03 / Who we serve
04 / Process
The order below is real and it is sequential. Nothing gets submitted before the onboarding checklist is complete, because an incomplete file is the single most expensive way to start.
Every item on the checklist is collected before anything is submitted.
We decide together which networks are worth pursuing, and which are not worth your time right now.
Letters of intent, network requests and contract requests go out to each payer.
The complete package — application, service grid, document attachments — submitted by portal or PDF, whichever that payer requires.
The file goes to committee. Deficiencies and additional requests come back to us, not to you, and get answered and resubmitted.
Reviewed on our side first, then walked through with you. Rates are negotiable at this stage and we treat them that way.
Signed, returned, and an effective date assigned.
We confirm the payer has actually loaded the contract, then handle EFT and ERA setup, portal registration and the handoff to billing. Billing does not start on an assumption.
Facilities are the exception. A contract is often issued before the credentialing review is finished, so the steps above do not always arrive in a clean order. That is normal — it just means someone has to be tracking both tracks at once.
05 / Timelines
Nobody can make a payer committee move faster. What we can do is keep your file clean so it is never the reason for a delay.
| Payer type | Examples | Typical range |
|---|---|---|
| Commercial | Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield, Optum, Cigna | 60–120 days |
| Medicare | CMS-855I, CMS-855B | 30–90 days |
| Medicaid / managed care | State plans and managed care organizations | 90–180 days |
Measured from the day your application enters the payer's queue — not from the day you hire us. Anyone quoting you a timeline from the engagement start date is quoting you a number they cannot control.
06 / Reviews
“When I first started, I had so many questions — everything from the differ…”
B. Jackson · Clinical Credentialing Consulting · 2/19/2026
“We needed guidance in our practice startup to make s…”
K. Allen · 2/15/2026
“I was new to credentialing services and wanted to st…”
Tennessee · 1/15/2026
07 / About
Nancy Low has spent fifteen years in addiction treatment and behavioral health operations, ten of them in credentialing and payer enrollment. IFC Credentialing works with everything from first-year startups to established treatment centers adding locations and levels of care.
The work is done by a small team she runs directly. You are not handed to a call center, and the person reviewing your contract is the person who submitted your application.
Nancy LowFounder · IFC Credentialing
Our mission
To simplify the complex systems of credentialing, payer enrollment and insurance contracting for behavioral health providers — so that mental health professionals, addiction treatment programs and healthcare organizations can build sustainable practices that expand access to care.
08 / Resources
Written for owners and providers, and for credentialing professionals who want to specialize in substance use disorder work.
The essential steps for launching a behavioral health practice or facility, and how to set up your organization before enrollment begins.
View on Gumroad → ChecklistEverything collected during onboarding, in the order it is needed.
View on Gumroad → ManualA full manual on getting an SUD facility in network with the insurance payers. Written for owners, providers and credentialing professionals.
View on Gumroad → 1:1A coaching program built around your credentialing business and the specialties you want to take on.
View on Gumroad →09 / Questions
Strictly speaking, no — it is not universally required. In practice, yes. Payers use CAQH to verify provider information, and it is becoming a required item at more of them every year. If your facility has licensed professionals on the roster, plan on CAQH for each of them.
For each licensed professional on the roster: date of birth, Social Security number, NPI, license number and CAQH number. Facilities are not exempt from this. Incomplete rosters are the most common reason a submission slips a month.
A closed panel is a network capacity decision, not a judgment about you. We document it, keep it on your status report, and revisit it — panels reopen, and some payers will consider an exception when you can show a service or geography gap they need filled.
Yes, but not as an in-network provider. Until an effective date is assigned and the contract is loaded, you are cash-pay or out-of-network for that payer. We tell you the moment each one flips so billing is never guessing.
Incomplete or outdated CAQH profiles, missing documentation or expired licenses, applying to the wrong networks, incorrect group or billing provider setup, and nobody following up with the payer. Each one is avoidable. Together they account for most of the delays we are hired to unwind.
Credentialing and enrollment are the core service, and we handle the EFT, ERA and portal setup that hands off cleanly to whoever bills for you. Billing services are available through partnership — ask and we will tell you honestly whether we are the right fit for your volume and specialty.
Get started
Whether you are opening a program, sitting on three applications that have gone quiet, or trying to add a location to a contract you already hold — start with a conversation. No obligation, and you will get a straight answer about what is realistic.