What is CAQH ProView?

CAQH ProView is a centralized credentialing database maintained by providers and used by most major health insurance companies to verify provider credentials. Instead of submitting separate paperwork to each payer, you maintain one CAQH profile and authorize payers to access it.

How long does CAQH verification take?

CAQH itself does not verify your credentials — it stores them. The verification is done by each payer when they pull your profile. Having a complete, current CAQH profile when you apply means the payer can begin verification immediately rather than waiting for you to gather documents.

How often do you have to re-attest CAQH?

Every 120 days. CAQH requires providers to log in and certify that their information is still current and accurate. Missing this window causes your profile to go inactive, which pauses any credentialing applications in progress.

What documents do you need to set up CAQH?

You need: your NPI number, active state license(s) with issue and expiration dates, malpractice insurance certificate, educational history (degrees and graduation dates), five years of work history, and three professional references.

What happens if my CAQH profile goes inactive?

If you miss the 120-day re-attestation window, your CAQH ProView profile goes inactive. Any in-progress credentialing applications that depend on your profile will pause — payers cannot complete their review until you re-attest and the profile is active again. Log back in, update any changed information, and re-attest. Most payers resume processing within a few business days of the profile going active again.

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What is CAQH and how do you set it up?

Q: Is CAQH required for insurance credentialing?

For credentialing with Aetna, Anthem BCBS, Cigna, and UnitedHealthcare, yes — CAQH ProView is effectively required. These four major commercial networks all use CAQH as the foundation for their credentialing process.

CAQH ProView is a shared credentialing database used by almost every major health insurance company. Before most payers will consider your credentialing application, they require an active, complete, and recently attested CAQH profile. This guide walks you through exactly what it is, why it exists, and how to set it up correctly the first time.

Last reviewed: June 2025 · paneled.ai team

paneled.ai walks you through your CAQH setup and catches the gaps that delay applications before anything is filed. See how it works.

What CAQH ProView actually is

CAQH stands for the Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare, a non-profit alliance founded in 1999 by major health plans. Its flagship product, ProView, was designed to solve a practical problem: every payer was collecting the same credentialing information from providers independently, creating duplicated work and inconsistent records on both sides. ProView standardized that process by creating a single repository where providers enter their information once and keep it current.

When a payer needs to verify your credentials — your license, malpractice coverage, education, work history — they query your CAQH profile directly instead of asking you to mail or upload the same documents to each organization separately. You control access: you authorize each payer individually to pull your information. No authorization, no access, even if your profile is complete.

Think of CAQH ProView as a secure, notarized copy of your professional record that you maintain and keep current. The database itself does not make credentialing decisions — that remains with each payer. What it does is give payers a standardized, consistent record to work from, which removes friction from the verification process on their end.

Do you need a CAQH profile?

If you are a behavioral health provider applying to credential with Aetna, Anthem BCBS, Cigna, or UnitedHealthcare, yes — CAQH ProView is effectively required. These four major commercial networks all use CAQH as the foundation of their credentialing process. Submitting an application to any of them without an active CAQH profile in place will either stop your application immediately or create delays while the payer waits for you to set one up.

Some smaller or regional payers have their own credentialing applications and do not use CAQH. Medicaid, Medicare, and state-specific managed care organizations often have separate processes. But if you are choosing which insurance panels to join and any of the four major commercial networks are on your list, assume you need a CAQH profile and set it up before you apply anywhere.

Creating your CAQH ProView account: step by step

The registration process is straightforward, but the sequence matters. Having your documents ready before you start will save you from partial progress and session timeouts. Here is the full process as the ProView interface currently presents it:

Here's what the setup process involves. If you're credentialing with paneled.ai, we guide you through every section of this in a single intake session — you don't have to figure it out alone.

Go to proview.caqh.org and click Register.
Enter your NPI number — this is required before account creation can proceed. If you do not have an NPI yet, you need to register for one first.
Verify your identity through the email and phone confirmation process CAQH sends during registration.
Select your provider type. Solo behavioral health providers use Individual (Type 1 NPI).
You will receive a CAQH ID — typically an eight-digit number. Save this immediately. Payers will ask for it when you apply, and you will need it to authorize them to access your profile.
Begin filling out each of the eight profile sections (covered in detail below). You can save progress and return; you do not need to complete everything in one session.
Authorize each payer you intend to apply to under the Payer Authorization section. This step is separate from completing your profile — do not skip it.
Complete the attestation. This certifies that your information is current and accurate and is required before any payer can access your profile. Without it, your profile is technically incomplete regardless of how thoroughly everything else is filled in.

The full process typically takes two to three hours if you have all your documents ready. Most of that time is data entry, not navigation. Plan for it rather than trying to do it piecemeal between appointments.

paneled.ai guides you through each CAQH section and flags common errors before they delay your application. Start in about five minutes.

The eight sections CAQH requires

CAQH ProView organizes your credentialing information into eight distinct sections. Every section must be complete before you can attest and before payers can access your profile. paneled.ai walks through each of these sections with you to ensure nothing is incomplete or inconsistent before payers see your profile. Here is what each section covers and what to watch for:

Personal and contact information — your legal name exactly as it appears on your state license, current address, phone, and email. A name mismatch between CAQH and your license is one of the most common causes of credentialing delays; even a missing middle initial can trigger a flag.
Education and training — your highest relevant degree, the granting institution, and your graduation date. This must match your license board record. If you changed your name after graduating, note that here.
Postgraduate training — internship, residency, or fellowship if applicable to your license type. Many LCSWs, LMHCs, and LPCs completed supervised hours rather than a formal residency; enter what is accurate, leave inapplicable fields blank rather than guessing.
Work history — a minimum of five years, without unexplained gaps. Payers scrutinize gaps, and leaving them blank looks worse than explaining them. If you took parental leave, a clinical break, or had a gap between positions, note it.
Professional references — typically three clinical references who can speak to your professional competence. These should not be personal references; supervisors, clinical directors, or senior colleagues are appropriate.
Malpractice insurance — your carrier name, policy number, effective date, and expiration date. Coverage must be current and active. If your policy is within a few months of expiring, renew it before completing this section so the dates you enter will still be valid when payers review your application.
Professional licenses — all active state licenses with exact issue and expiration dates. If you are licensed in multiple states, list all of them. Expired licenses should not be listed as active.
Attestation — the final step that certifies everything you have entered is accurate and current. This is not a signature formality; it has legal weight, and it is also the trigger that makes your profile accessible to authorized payers. Re-attestation is required every 120 days.

Authorizing payers to access your profile

A complete CAQH profile does nothing until you authorize each payer to access it. Payer authorization is a separate step from filling out your profile sections, and it is easy to overlook. Navigate to the Payer Authorization section within your ProView account and check the box next to each payer you want to credential with. Without that authorization, the payer's credentialing system cannot pull your profile even if everything else is complete.

Do this before submitting any payer application. If a payer receives your application and goes to query your CAQH profile only to find they are not authorized, your application stalls while you sort it out. Some payers will notify you; others simply wait. Either way, authorization is a five-second step that removes a real source of delay — handle it while you are setting up the profile rather than after the fact. Important: authorizing a payer in your CAQH profile gives them access to your data — it does not submit a credentialing application to that payer. You still need to submit a separate network participation request to each payer after your profile is complete.

The re-attestation requirement: every 120 days

This is the most commonly missed CAQH requirement, and it catches providers off guard because it continues long after they have forgotten about CAQH entirely. Every 120 days, you must log into ProView and attest that your information is still current and accurate — even if absolutely nothing has changed. The re-attestation is not optional and it is not triggered automatically; you must initiate it.

If you miss the window, your profile status changes to inactive. When that happens, payers lose the ability to access your profile. If you had a credentialing application already in progress when your profile went inactive, that application can pause. The payer may not notify you promptly — you may simply stop hearing back and assume the process is just slow, when in reality your profile has lapsed. This is a common source of credentialing timeline delays that has nothing to do with the payer or your qualifications.

Set a recurring calendar reminder for every 100 days from your initial attestation date to give yourself a buffer. The re-attestation itself takes less than five minutes — you are confirming that nothing has changed, or updating whatever has. paneled.ai sends you a re-attestation reminder before the 120-day window closes so your active applications never stall.

Common CAQH mistakes that delay credentialing

Most CAQH-related credentialing delays come from a small set of recurring errors. These are the ones we see most often — worth checking against before you submit anything:

Name on CAQH does not exactly match the name on your state license. A missing middle initial, a hyphenated versus unhyphenated surname, or a legal name change that updated your license but not your CAQH profile can all cause a verification mismatch. Check the credentialing checklist for the full list of fields that need to align exactly.
Malpractice dates entered incorrectly or the policy has a gap. Entering a past expiration date, transposing month and day, or having a brief coverage lapse between policy periods will all flag during payer review. Double-check your certificate of insurance against what is in your CAQH profile.
Payer authorization not completed before submitting the payer application. This is the most avoidable delay on the list. Authorize payers in ProView first, then apply.
Re-attestation missed, causing the profile to go inactive mid-application. As described above, a lapsed attestation can halt a credentialing application that was already in progress. Set the calendar reminder.
Work history gaps left unexplained. Payers will ask about gaps, and leaving them blank looks worse than explaining them. A brief note — parental leave, career transition, moving states — is all that is needed. Silence reads as an omission.

Don't let a CAQH error cost you 60 days.

paneled.ai reviews your CAQH profile against the most common errors — expired attestation, wrong taxonomy code, missing work history — before anything is filed.

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