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Your Practice. Your Contracts.

Direct Payer Contracting For Your Own Practice

$700 per payer. Five payers is $3,500. Monthly plans available, no interest or fees.

Ask us anything, for as long as you're a client. How to bill as a new practice, how to bill a certain insurance company, what a denial means. Send it in your Command Suite or by email, and we reply within one business day, usually the same day. If a question turns into new work, we send a written quote before we start.

Direct payer contracting gets your practice commercial contracts in its own name. We ask each payer for the effective date in writing.

Buy Now Ask Practice Concierge

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Already credentialed through Headway or Alma? See how that affects your quote.

Build Your Credentialing Price

Choose the work and how many insurance companies each provider needs. See your total before you pay. Provider and payer details come next, in secure onboarding.

Five payers for $3,500, paid in full or monthly at the same total. See your exact payment schedule with your quote.

The more providers, the lower the price: 2 to 4 providers save 10%, 5 to 9 save 15% and 10 save 20%. The discount comes off the whole subtotal automatically. For example, a practice getting contracts of its own for 10 providers pays $560 per payer instead of $700.

Add Medicare Or Medicaid Enrollment (Optional)
Medicare And Medicaid Enrollments

Count each program in each state separately, for every provider selected above. Leave this at 0 if you do not need government enrollment. Program and state names come after payment.

Review your price, then continue to checkout.

Who This Is For

The most common version is a prescriber who’s been seeing patients through a network platform (Headway, Alma, Grow Therapy, Rula or SonderMind) and now wants the contracts in their own name, so the revenue and the payer relationship belong to the practice.

You don’t have to leave those platforms to do this. Going direct and staying on a platform aren’t mutually exclusive, and you can often keep both while the payer applications are in progress, as your platform agreement allows. When your own agreements load, you decide what to do next.

It also fits any practice that formed its own business and now needs commercial panels under it for the first time.

AdvanceAPractice is not affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any platform named on this page.

What’s Included

  • The organizational/group application to each in-scope payer, the piece that doesn’t exist in a transition or a provider-add
  • Contract review and signing when a payer offers an agreement, then the effective date confirmed in writing
  • Credentialing the rendering provider and linking the Type 1 NPI under your practice’s Type 2 NPI
  • CAQH/DataSpring audit. We track re-attestation dates while we work your applications. You complete and attest your own profile, since attestation is the provider’s own act. If you want us to maintain your profile, you share access securely and change the password when we’re done.
  • Claims and payments set up: claims go out under your Tax ID and group NPI, insurance payments deposit into your business bank account (EFT), and payment reports (ERAs) flow into your EHR. We don’t stop at the enrollment form or the first payment. We stay in touch until each payer’s payments are coming in electronically and steadily. A hiccup or two is normal, and once most of them come through consistently, we mark that payer complete.
  • Directory verification so patients can find you in-network

Which Package Is Yours

These four look similar and are not interchangeable. The difference is what already exists:

Checkout asks two questions and enforces this. If your answers point somewhere else, it will say so instead of taking your money.

More Than One State?

A practice serving two states may need separate applications with the same payer because products, networks, and service areas can differ by state. Select every provider and payer path in the pricing builder to see the current itemized total before checkout. Build your exact price.

If you tell the Practice Concierge your state, it will tell you which carriers matter in your market.

What We Don’t Promise

Commercial payers take 60 to 120 days each, on their own clocks. We submit to all of them in parallel, so the slowest payer sets the pace, not the sum of them. The part that’s up to us is getting a complete application accepted the first time, because a payer’s clock doesn’t start until then.

Approval isn’t the finish line, either. Roster loading, the written effective date and the directory listing are separate events. Don’t schedule anyone as in-network until the payer confirms an effective date in writing.

In saturated markets, panels can be closed to new groups. We work every application and write down exactly what comes back: an executed contract, a documented denial, or a closeout handoff with the full history and the next step. Nobody can make a payer contract with you, and we don’t pretend otherwise.

FAQ

Direct Payer Contracting Questions

Can I Keep Seeing Patients Through Headway Or Alma While My Own Contracts Are Pending?

Usually, yes. You don’t have to leave a platform to apply for your own contracts. Check your platform agreement first, since some platforms say clients they referred to you must stay on the platform and be billed there.

Does Being Credentialed Through Headway Or Alma Change My Price?

No. Credentialing through a platform is tied to the platform’s contracts, so each payer needs a new contract for your own practice, with you linked as the rendering provider. The price is the same, and having your history on file with a payer is a plus.

I’m On Alma Or Headway And Don’t Have My Own Business Yet. Which Package Fits?

First Practice Launch. Platforms usually hold the contracts under their own Tax ID, so you need your own business records, a group NPI and payer contracts, and the launch sets them up in order. If your business already exists, this page is the right one.

How Is This Different From Payer Transition?

Payer Transition moves contracts you already hold to a new practice or Tax ID. Direct Payer Contracting is for a practice that has its own business, EIN and Type 2 NPI but no contracts of its own yet, so we send the organizational application to each payer.

How Long Do Commercial Payers Take?

Usually 60 to 120 days each, on the payer’s own clock. We submit to every payer at once, so the slowest one sets the pace, and we don’t treat anyone as in network until the payer confirms an effective date in writing.

What Happens If A Panel Is Closed?

In saturated markets a payer can close its panel to new groups. We still work the application and write down exactly what comes back: an executed contract, a documented denial, or a closeout with the full history and the next step.

Can I Pay Monthly?

Yes. Monthly plans are available, at the same total as paying in full, with no interest or fees. You see the exact schedule before you pay.

What This Looks Like

Seven Service Codes Repriced In A Single Addendum

One payer’s fee schedule still reflected the state the owner had practiced in years earlier, well under what the same plan paid others in that market. It took four attempts over three months, one bounced address and a handoff between provider relations and provider recruitment.

The payer approved higher rates on seven services at once, effective the first of the next month, as an addendum with no signature required. Three of the seven rose thirty percent and one nearly forty-five.

Credentialing gets a provider approved. Contracting is where the rate gets decided, and a company that only files applications is never in that conversation.

Read the full case study

What Happens After You Pay

  1. Right after payment. Your receipt arrives by email. If you pay monthly, your payment schedule comes with it and autopay is set. Within two business days, after we review your order, you’ll get an email invitation to the AdvanceAPractice Command Suite, where you’ll review and sign your Order Form and agreement.
  2. Onboarding. After payment you sign the Client Services Agreement and Order Form in the AdvanceAPractice Command Suite, plus a Business Associate Agreement, then upload your documents there. We begin work within three business days after we receive your completed onboarding information, documents and access.
  3. While we work. We review your CAQH and your documents with you, submit the applications in coordination with you and stay on each one until the payer gives an effective date in writing. We follow up with each payer at least every 10 business days. If a payer says no or its panel is closed, you get that answer in writing and that payer is complete.
  4. On approval. You get the written effective date, confirmed portals and payment routing, so you know the day you can bill.

Want to read the Order Form first? We’ll email you the Order Form for Direct Payer Contracting with the exact scope, price and terms.

We’ll only use your email to send the Order Form. Privacy

Not Sure Which Credentialing Package Fits?

Every credentialing package has a published price and a written scope. Tell us what’s changing in your practice and which payers you need, and we’ll point you to the right one.

Command Suite onboarding preview
Command Suite onboarding screen offering secure document assistance, manual setup, or a mix of both.