Skip to main content

Alaska

Alaska Behavioral Health Credentialing and Medicaid Enrollment

Alaska has no Medicaid health plans. You enroll once with Alaska Medical Assistance and bill the state, and there is nothing to join after that. The part most checklists still get wrong is behavioral health: Optum stopped running it for the state on December 31, 2024.

See what we need from you
Alaska payers and timelines

Where the delays actually happen

Getting on a panel isn’t the same as getting paid.

With no plan layer in Alaska Medicaid, almost all of the waiting sits in two places: the state’s screening queue and each commercial carrier’s contracting desk. We work both, and we tell you which one you’re actually sitting in.

Credentialed›contracted›loaded›connected›payable

Two tracks

One of these is the simplest in the country. The other isn’t.

Alaska Medicaid takes one enrollment and no plan contracts. The commercial side takes five separate applications and behavioral health has its own door at three of them.

Alaska Medical Assistance

Enroll once. There is no plan layer.

Alaska is one of the last states running no Medicaid managed care at all. No MCOs, no regional service areas, no behavioral health plan roster. Your contract is with the state and it covers the whole state.

How you enrollThrough the Alaska Medicaid Provider Enrollment Portal, part of Alaska Medicaid Health Enterprise. The first decision is the enrollment type, because it decides who can bill. An incorporated entity files a Group Provider Enrollment, which carries billing privileges and lets rendering providers affiliate to it. A clinician rendering under a group files an Individual Provider Enrollment and has no billing privileges of their own. A sole proprietor files an individual enrollment and answers yes to billing under an SSN or ITIN, which does carry billing privileges.
Provider type matters at the doorThe document list changes with it. A psychiatric nurse practitioner enrolls under 034 Advanced Practice Registered Nurse, a psychiatrist under 020 Physician, and a behavioral health group practice under 107, which has several variants including Community Behavioral Health and State Plan Services.
Two clocks that start the day you fileIf you need an earlier effective date, the Request to Backdate Provider Enrollment has to be in within 30 days of the application, and Alaska grants it only for a narrow list of circumstances. Under 7 AAC 105.210(f) you also have 30 days to report any enrollment change.
Prescribers get caught hereAlaska pays for a service delivered on a referral, order or prescription only when the referring, ordering or prescribing provider is enrolled. A commercial-only practice can still break someone else’s claim.

Commercial

Small market, and Premera is strict about where you practice.

Alaska has one Blue, not two. Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska holds both licenses, and it ties an Alaska contract to actually being in Alaska. A typical opening set here is Premera, Optum, Aetna, and Moda if its panel is open for your borough.

The residency rulePremera says you must reside in Alaska and provide care primarily in Alaska to hold an Alaska contract, and it terminates a contract when a provider moves out of the Washington and Alaska service areas, including when the only remaining work is telehealth to Alaska members. Worth confirming before anyone files.
Your CAQH stays yoursYou complete and attest your own profile. We’re added as an authorized practice manager, so we keep the practice data current and get each payer authorized. Premera wants an attestation inside 90 days and pulls through Certify, which emails the address on your CAQH profile, so make that one you read.
Behavioral health has its own doorUnitedHealthcare’s is Optum, through Provider Express. Cigna’s is Evernorth. Aetna handles behavioral health itself but on a separate Behavioral Health Request for Participation. Premera and Moda keep it inside the plan. Starting on the medical form at the first three is the most expensive mistake available in this state.
Seeing patients in other statesOne Premera Alaska contract reaches Blue members in other states through BlueCard. Aetna, Cigna and UnitedHealthcare are national. The gate is a license where the patient is, not another contract. Joining a different state’s network is a separate question, and Alaska is a good example of a state that asks about physical presence.

Alaska commercial payers

Who you’ll apply to, and how long it usually takes.

These are typical ranges from a complete application. Alaska has no statute putting a clock on carriers, so these are their own published processes. We track them rather than promise them.

Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska

The in-state Blue. Behavioral health stays in-house.
  • Credentialing: Premera says it typically takes under two weeks
  • Contracting: the slow half. Premera gives its team 45 to 60 business days to review, sign and return through DocuSign, and you get 30 days to return signed documents before the request closes
  • Joining an existing contracted group: allow 7 to 10 business days for the directory update
  • Watch: the Alaska residency and primary-practice requirement, and recredentialing every three years. Premera warns that letting recredentialing lapse puts the contract at risk

Optum Behavioral Health (UnitedHealthcare)

Initiated on Provider Express
  • Usually: about 60 to 120 days from a complete application
  • Published green light: Optum’s Alaska page lists MDs, DOs, PAs and RNs with prescriptive authority as actively sought in all counties, along with telemental health, medication-assisted treatment prescribers, Express Access providers and EAP
  • CAQH: Optum requires a CAQH ID before you can start the Alaska application
  • Don’t confuse it with the Medicaid change: the contract that ended was the state’s behavioral health administrative services organization. Optum’s commercial and Medicare networks were not affected

Separate door: Optum Behavioral Health

Aetna

Third-party administrator for AlaskaCare
  • Usually: about 60 to 120 days from a complete file, with an eligibility answer on network need inside 45 days
  • Sequence: request for participation, then a network-need evaluation, then credentialing pulled from CAQH Provider Data Portal, then contracting
  • Why it punches above its weight here: Aetna administers AlaskaCare for state employees, retirees and participating political subdivisions, so one national contract reaches a large block of Alaska patients
  • Watch: behavioral health uses Aetna’s separate Behavioral Health Request for Participation, including when you’re joining a medical group

Separate form: Aetna Behavioral Health

Moda Health

Publishes a live panel by borough
  • Usually: Moda doesn’t publish a figure. Plan on roughly 60 to 120 days through credentialing and contracting
  • Check the panel first: Moda’s Alaska nominations page shows which specialties are open by borough. At our last check Behavioral Health was open, and that category names Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, Psychiatry, Psychology and substance use disorder work across boroughs from Anchorage and Fairbanks to Ketchikan Gateway and Prince of Wales
  • Watch: Moda’s Oregon panel has counselors closed while Alaska’s has them open, so don’t carry an Oregon assumption north

Cigna Healthcare

Behavioral health goes through Evernorth
  • Usually: Evernorth says joining can take up to about 90 days
  • Right now: Evernorth paused new individual and clinic behavioral health applications on June 1, 2026, and has signaled reopening after September 1. The pause is national and we found no Alaska exception. Facilities can still apply and anything filed before the pause keeps processing
  • Our read: don’t build an Alaska launch around Cigna today. We queue it and tell you the wait instead of pretending it’s open

Separate door: Evernorth Behavioral Health

What Alaska law does and doesn’t give you

Read before anyone quotes you a neighboring state’s clock
  • No credentialing clock. We read the Alaska Insurance Code end to end. There is no 60-day or 90-day decision deadline and no retroactive payment during credentialing the way Washington has it
  • But your contract has required contents. AS 21.07.010 says the agreement must identify covered services, state your rate of compensation or point at an attachment that does, and carry a dispute process with real deadlines. Read the rate exhibit, because Alaska law says it has to be there
  • Prompt pay is real. AS 21.36.495 gives an insurer 30 days on a clean claim, with interest at 15 percent a year if it misses. That’s a billing protection, not a credentialing one

Medicare, Alaska Medical Assistance and VA Community Care are scoped and priced separately from a commercial package. Alaska’s VA work runs through TriWest Healthcare Alliance, which administers Community Care Network Region 5, and referrals flow from VA rather than from a patient walking in.

Carry a plan we didn’t list? Add it.

AlaskaCare, union and Taft-Hartley trusts, self-funded employer plans through a TPA, VA Community Care, tribal health organizations. You name the plan, we find the real route. Some of these aren’t contracts you apply for at all: AlaskaCare runs through Aetna, and work with an Alaska Native tribal health organization is usually an employment or referral arrangement rather than a payer application. You don’t need to know the plumbing. We do.

What we need from you

Send these once and we can start.

You give us this in one intake. Then we fill out the applications. No passwords, no patient information, and nothing gets submitted until you’ve read it and signed.

  • Your individual NPIPlus a Type 2 if you bill under an entity. In Alaska the group enrollment is what carries billing privileges.
  • Active Alaska license and DEAFor your provider type. We confirm your practice location early, because Premera ties the contract to it.
  • CAQH attested and authorizedYou attest it. We keep it current. Premera wants attestation inside 90 days and Optum wants a CAQH ID before you start.
  • Delegated portal accessSo we can prepare the Alaska Medicaid enrollment and the DocuSign agreements for your signature. We also need the tracking number the portal issues.
  • Entity name, EIN and W-9One per tax ID. Tell us now if you plan to incorporate, because Alaska treats that as a new group enrollment with a new fee.
  • State of Alaska business licenseAlaska lists it for the group and facility provider types, including the behavioral health ones.
  • Ownership and disclosure detailOwners, managing employees and controlling interests for the Provider Disclosure Statement, plus whether your type owes the application fee.
  • Fingerprint clearance, if your type needs oneAlaska requires it for several behavioral health enrollment types. It is slow to get and it holds the whole application, so we check before we file.
  • Malpractice certificateNaming you, or a carrier-produced roster face sheet.
  • Five years of work historyMonth and year, with any gap over six months explained. This is the most common reason a clean-looking file comes back.

One dated change to plan around: from August 1, 2026 the Division of Health Care Services and Gainwell run new provider enrollment submission rules. Emailed documents follow a published subject-line convention, and fax or DSM submissions need the new standardized coversheet. An auto-reply confirms receipt and names anything missing. Revalidation and account updates can also go through DocuSign, and renewed licenses upload through the portal. A packet assembled to the old rules can bounce, so we file to the current forms.

Alaska also approves behavioral health programs themselves, separate from the licenses of the people who work in them. Depending on the services your practice plans to bill, the state may want the program approved or certified before those claims are paid. A lot of outpatient prescribing practices never run into it. We ask about your service mix during intake and confirm whether it applies to you before it can hold up an enrollment. We don’t tell you whether you need one and we don’t file it for you.

Rather hand the whole thing off? Credentialing and payer enrollment is what we do, in Alaska and in the other 49. Physicians and outpatient medical groups, psychiatrists included, start on the physician credentialing page.

How it works

You answer once. We do the paperwork.

Buy the package

Published price and scope. No call needed.

One intake

Short and guided. It asks more only where your answers call for it.

We fill it out

Your Alaska Medicaid enrollment and every commercial application, prepared from what you told us.

You review and sign

Read it, change anything, sign. Nothing goes out until you say so.

We submit and track

Every purchase includes Command Suite, so you can see where each payer application stands, what we’re working on, what’s waiting on a payer, and what we still need from you.

What we commit to

If something we delivered does not work the way we said it would, we fix it at no charge for 30 days after delivery, including one stabilization review. That covers our own work. A new request, another payer or provider, a change of scope, or a new build is quoted separately. You will not get an invoice for correcting our mistake.

Everything we set up is built for the practice you are growing into, not only the one you have today. Adding a provider, a location, or another payer should be a configuration step rather than a rebuild, and the automations and workflows we deliver are sized with that headroom from the start. When the engagement ends you own the accounts, the documentation, and the systems, and they keep running without us.

Questions we get

Alaska credentialing questions

Which Alaska Medicaid plan should I join?
None, because there aren’t any. Alaska Medical Assistance is fee-for-service across the whole state. No MCOs, no regional plans, no separate behavioral health plan. Once the state approves your enrollment, your Medicaid work is finished. That’s genuinely unusual and it removes an entire layer that eats months elsewhere.
Do I still register on Provider Express for Alaska Medicaid?
No. Optum ran behavioral health as the Division of Behavioral Health’s administrative services organization, and that contract ended December 31, 2024. Claims moved into the state MMIS in phases: independent psychologists on October 1, 2024, LCSWs and LPCs on November 1, LMFTs and autism providers on December 1, and mental health clinics and community behavioral health on January 1, 2025. The Optum Alaska site came down and questions now go to the Division of Behavioral Health. Provider Express is still the door for UnitedHealthcare’s commercial behavioral health, which is a separate thing and easy to confuse.
How long does credentialing take in Alaska?
Plan on 60 to 120 days per commercial payer from a complete application. Premera says credentialing itself often runs under two weeks, which sounds fast until you see that contracting gets 45 to 60 business days on top. Alaska has no state law putting a clock on carriers, so nobody owes you a decision date. We track the file and push rather than promise.
Can I hold Alaska commercial panels if I live outside Alaska?
With Premera, no. Premera says you must reside in Alaska and provide care primarily in Alaska to hold an Alaska contract, and it terminates a contract when a provider moves out of the Washington and Alaska service areas, including when the only remaining work is telehealth to Alaska members. The national carriers work differently, and one Aetna, Cigna or UnitedHealthcare contract covers every state you’re licensed in. So the answer depends on which payer you mean, which is exactly why we check before anyone files.
Do I have to enroll with Alaska Medicaid if I only see commercial patients?
If you order, refer or prescribe for anyone on Alaska Medical Assistance, yes. The state pays for a service delivered on a referral, order or prescription only when that provider is enrolled. So a cash-pay or commercial-only prescriber can quietly break a pharmacy’s or a lab’s claim without ever seeing it happen.
Does Alaska Medicaid charge an application fee?
For calendar year 2026 the CMS-set fee is $750, and it lands on organizational provider types. Alaska’s own list includes Behavioral Health Outpatient and Community Mental Health Center, so a behavioral health group usually pays and an individual clinician usually doesn’t. If you already paid it to Medicare or to another state’s Medicaid or CHIP, you can show proof instead of paying again. Checks have to be for the exact amount or the application is rejected.
Do you need my CAQH password?
No, and we won’t ask. We’re added as an authorized practice manager, which lets us keep your practice data current and authorize payers. You complete and attest your own profile. In Alaska the email address on that profile matters more than usual, because Certify does Premera’s credentialing verification and writes to whatever address CAQH has on file.
How do I reach AlaskaCare and state employee members?
Through Aetna. The Division of Retirement and Benefits names Aetna as the third-party administrator for the AlaskaCare employee medical plan, which covers state employees, retirees and participating political subdivisions. There’s no separate AlaskaCare contract to apply for. In a market this size that single relationship is a real argument for holding Aetna even when your patient mix looks Premera-heavy.

Keep reading

Related

Alaska PMHNP scope of practiceWhat Alaska allows you to do, separate from who pays you.
Washington credentialing and payer enrollmentSame Premera company, and a state law that pays you back.
Oregon credentialing and payer enrollmentModa again, but a different open panel and a CCO layer.
Idaho credentialing and payer enrollmentAnother Moda state with its own Medicaid behavioral health route.
Opening your own practiceEntity, identifiers, payers, EHR and billing setup.
Adding a provider to your clinicFirst-time credentialing into contracts you already hold.
Changing your entity or tax IDMoving panels without breaking the money.

Ready to get billable in Alaska?

Start the intake and we’ll map your Alaska Medicaid and commercial path. Most people never need a call.

See packages and pricing

Where this comes from

  • Optum (United Behavioral Health), Transition of Alaska Medicaid Contract notice verified July 26, 2026
  • Alaska Department of Health, Division of Behavioral Health, ASO transition updates verified July 26, 2026
  • Alaska Medicaid Health Enterprise, provider enrollment types, forms and provider type list verified July 26, 2026
  • Alaska Division of Health Care Services and Gainwell, the provider enrollment process changes taking effect August 1, 2026, posted July 1, 2026 verified July 27, 2026
  • Premera Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alaska, join our network and credentialing verified July 26, 2026
  • Optum / Provider Express, Alaska join our network verified July 26, 2026
  • Aetna, request for participation and behavioral health participation verified July 26, 2026
  • State of Alaska, Division of Retirement and Benefits (AlaskaCare) verified July 26, 2026
  • Moda Health, Alaska nominations panel verified July 26, 2026
  • Evernorth Behavioral Health, credentialing and application pause verified July 26, 2026
  • Alaska Statutes Title 21 (Insurance), AS 21.07.010, AS 21.07.030 and AS 21.36.495 verified July 26, 2026

Written by Ryan Berg, founder of AdvanceAPractice. 16 years in healthcare revenue cycle and credentialing.

Facts on this page were verified July 26, 2026 and are next due for review September 28, 2026.

Payer programs, plans and timelines change. Everything here carries a verification date and gets re-checked on a review cycle; this record is next due for review on September 28, 2026. Approval and effective dates are controlled by each payer and by the state. This page covers payer operations. It isn’t legal, tax or scope of practice advice.