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The Headway guide to registering with CAQH

Here are the documents you’ll need to have on hand, and how to troubleshoot some common mistakes.

December 21, 2023 • Updated on December 16, 2025

10 min read

The Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare (CAQH) is an essential part of your professional journey as a provider: Most commercial insurance carriers require their providers to have a CAQH account to get credentialed.

If you decide to work with Headway to build your private practice and fast-track your insurance credentialing, we partner with CAQH to make the process as smooth as possible.

This resource will help you understand how to complete your CAQH profile, including what kinds of information you’ll need to submit, what documents you’ll need to have on hand, and how to troubleshoot some common mistakes.

Key takeaways

  • The Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare, or CAQH, is a nonprofit that streamlines the business of health care. Insurance companies use the information providers submit to CAQH to ensure they meet credentialing standards.
  • When making a CAQH profile, you’ll need to provide information about your work and education history, licenses, specialties, practice location, and malpractice insurance.
  • CAQH application is integrated with the Headway onboarding process, allowing us to quickly catch and fix errors so you can get credentialed and start seeing patients faster.

What is CAQH?

CAQH stands for “Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare,” a non-profit organization with the goal of streamlining the business of healthcare. Insurance plans use the information providers submit to CAQH to credential clinicians ensuring they have the education, training, and experience to provide quality care to clients.

CAQH ProView is an online database managed by CAQH where mental healthcare providers can submit, maintain, and share information about their education and professional practice.


Get credentialed in multiple states in as little as 30 days — for free

As an extension of your practice, Headway leverages the information you submit to CAQH to get you credentialed with all available plans at once — with fewer errors and delays.

In fact, we’ve directly integrated CAQH into our onboarding process, using CAQH to pre-populate our intake form, so you can get started seeing clients through Headway as soon as possible. Additionally, to ensure that we collect your information accurately and completely, our form immediately flags any elements that are missing from your CAQH account that Headway’s insurance partners require to get you credentialed.

(Typically, when a provider’s CAQH information is incomplete or does not meet payer requirements, the credentialing process could be extended for weeks, and could even be denied by payers. That’s why our system reviews your CAQH account during the intake process to help make sure you’re ready to go.)

Registering, attesting, and re-attesting CAQH can be a time-consuming and confusing process, but it’s a necessary part of striking out on your own as an in-network mental healthcare provider in private practice.

Headway makes it easier to run your practice — from onboarding with CAQH, to billing, scheduling, compliance, and getting paid.

Practice in-network with confidence

Simplify insurance and save time on your entire workflow — from compliance and billing to credentialing and admin.

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How do I complete the CAQH ProView process?

If you don’t already have a CAQH account, you’ll need to make one in order to be credentialed with insurance. There are five steps to register your information with CAQH for the first time:

1. Register with CAQH ProView.

Visit the ProView registration page and create a ProView account. You’ll need some documentation on hand to complete this process, such as your W-9(s), state license, identification numbers (with Medicare and Medicaid, for example), Drug Enforcement Administration and Controlled Dangerous Substances certificates (if relevant), and malpractice insurance policy.

2. Complete all application questions.

You’ll be guided to complete fields related to your personal information, education and training, professional experience, details about your practice, speciality information, and professional liability insurance. If you have any past history of malpractice, you’ll have to disclose that, too.

3. Authorize access to your application data.

Indicate which healthcare organizations (like Headway) you’d like to have access to your CAQH data. 

4. Review your data and verify (or “attest”) it’s accurate and complete.

Address any errors you need to fix within your data profile. Here are some common CAQH error messages you might see:

  • License number error: If you see an error message related to your license number, ensure you’ve entered it exactly right. Some states have different license number formatting requirements, which you can see here.
  • Add state to CAQH: This message means you haven’t listed a practice state in your application. You can add one in the “personal information” section.
  • Add professional liability insurance to CAQH: If you get this error message, you may have mistyped your policy information — or your policy may not meet required occurrence and aggregate amounts. Double check that everything was entered correctly and meets specifications.
  • Add education to CAQH: It’s easy to mistakenly enter your education type as “undergraduate” rather than “professional school.” If you see this error message, confirm you haven’t done so.
  • Add license issue date to CAQH: “License issue date” is an optional field in the CAQH system, but Headway requires it. Make sure to include this information if you’re making a CAQH account as part of the Headway onboarding process.  

5. Upload supporting documents. 

Digitally submit copies of documents like your state medical license and malpractice insurance policy.

How long does it take to register with CAQH?

If you’re registering with CAQH for the first time, it could take anywhere from 45 minutes to two hours to complete your registration. Being prepared helps! The more information you have to include — such as practice locations, postgraduate training, or work history— the longer your application may take.

Does a CAQH account cost money?

No — CAQH is available to providers free of charge.

How to prepare for the CAQH application

You can make the CAQH credentialing process go more smoothly by being prepared with the right information and documents. Here’s what’s typically on the application:

What’s on the application?

  • Basic personal information: Contact information, social security number, individual NPI, professional ID numbers
  • Education and training: Medical/professional school, graduate school, internships and residencies, fellowships and preceptorships, teaching appointments
  • Specialties and board certification
  • Practice location information: Practice name and type, address and contact information, billing/office manager/credentialing contacts, services/certifications/limitations of operation, hours of operation, partners/covering colleagues
  • Hospital affiliation information
  • Malpractice insurance information
  • Work history and references
  • Disclosure and malpractice history

What documents will I need to get started?

  • Certificate of current malpractice insurance policy or policies (and a future one if current policy will expire in the next 30 days)
  • State medical or professional license(s)
  • IRS form W-9(s)
  • Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) certificate, if you’re a prescriber of controlled substances
  • Controlled and Dangerous Substances (CDS) certificate, if you are a prescriber of controlled substances in a state that requires CDS licensure: DC, IL, MD, MA, MI (MD/DO only), NJ

How do I “attest” CAQH?

When your CAQH profile is complete and free from errors, you’ll click a button labeled “Attest” to certify that you’ve reviewed your information and verify that it’s true to the best of your knowledge. 

If you’re filling out a CAQH profile for the first time, you’ll be asked twice to attest your information: Once after you fill out your profile data, and again after uploading your supporting documentation.

You must complete the attestation process for participating organizations like Headway to access your new and updated data. 

It takes approximately 48 hours for CAQH to receive, approve, and confirm your data, at which point you’ll receive a confirmation email from CAQH. From there, you’re ready to complete your Headway intake form and kick off the credentialing process.

What does it mean to “re-attest”?

CAQH requires providers to re-attest their data every 120 days (180 days for Illinois providers) to ensure the data is accurate and updated for health plans to use.

At this point, you can make any necessary revisions to your data profile, including changing an address, updating a new expiration date, or uploading a new document (such as your malpractice insurance policy).

CAQH Proview will email you three times to remind you when you are due for re-attestation: 15, 10, and 5 days before your data’s expiration date.

If you miss the window to re-attest with CAQH, your information will no longer be accessible to the health plans or other organizations you’ve authorized to access your profile, which can lead to re-credentialing delays and denials, or rejected claims.


Need help with CAQH?

Headway’s help center article on CAQH can help with walkthroughs and resolutions to common errors you might encounter as you fill out or update your CAQH account.

If you have questions about your CAQH application, you can reach out to the CAQH support desk. The CAQH Support Desk provides assistance Monday through Thursday, from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM (EST) and Friday from 7 AM to 7 PM (EST) via telephone: 1-888-599-1771.

You can also log in to CAQH ProView and click the chat icon at the bottom of any page.

Get credentialed quickly and easily with Headway

Headway makes it easy to get credentialed so you can begin seeing clients within 30 days. As an extension of your practice, Headway leverages the information you submit to CAQH to get you credentialed with all available plans at once, and with fewer errors and delays. Ready to take the next step? Learn more about Headway and how we can support your practice through credentialing and more.

Spend less time on claims and more time with your clients

Simplify insurance and get the support you can count on to practice in-network with confidence. With streamlined multi-state credentialing, expansive insurance coverage, and precise eligibility checks, you can enjoy the benefits of accepting insurance without the stress.

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This content is for general informational and educational purposes only and does not constitute clinical, legal, financial, or professional advice. All decisions should be made at the discretion of the individual or organization, in consultation with qualified clinical, legal, or other appropriate professionals.

© 2026 Therapymatch, Inc. dba Headway. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without permission.

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