Introducing the Credentialing Hub: Own Your Data, Credential Yourself

If you've ever tried to get on insurance panels as a solo therapist, you already know: the hardest part isn't the clinical work. It's the paperwork.

Every payer wants the same information (your NPI, licenses, malpractice coverage, education, tax ID, CAQH profile) but they all want it in different formats, in different order, through different portals. You end up with the same 30 data points scattered across emails, PDFs, browser tabs, and sticky notes. Then CAQH re-attestation comes around every 120 days and you do it all over again.

We built the Credentialing Hub to fix this. It's free, it's live today, and it's designed for therapists who want to own their credentialing process without paying a credentialing service thousands of dollars to do it for them.

What It Actually Does

The Credentialing Hub is a single place to store and organize every piece of information that payers ask for during credentialing. Think of it as your credentialing filing cabinet, except it's structured, searchable, and knows what each payer needs.

Here's what's inside:

• Guided intake form: 10 sections covering NPI, licenses, CAQH, malpractice, tax ID, practice info, education, specialties, and professional bios. Auto-saves as you go. If you've ever filed a tax return with TurboTax, the experience will feel familiar.
• Payer-specific application views: Once your info is entered, the Hub reorganizes it into the exact order each payer wants it. Aetna asks for things differently than Cigna. Medicare/PECOS has its own structure. The Hub shows you YOUR credentials laid out the way each payer expects them, with copy-to-clipboard buttons so you can move through applications faster.
• 10+ major payers supported: CAQH ProView, Aetna, Cigna/Evernorth, Optum/UBH, Medicare/PECOS, TRICARE, Medicaid (all 50 states), and major EAP networks.
• Panel tracker: Log every application you submit, track its status, and get follow-up reminders. No more wondering "Did I ever hear back from Cigna?"
• Deadline dashboard: Auto-computed urgency for CAQH re-attestation (120 days), license expirations, malpractice renewal, and panel re-credentialing dates. The things that sneak up on you won't sneak up on you.
• NPI auto-lookup: Enter your NPI and we pull what we can automatically.
• Printable checklist: A doc-gathering checklist you can print before you start, so you're not hunting for your malpractice certificate mid-application.
• Professional bios: 50-word, 150-word, and 250-word versions, copy-paste ready. Most payers ask for a bio. Now you have three lengths pre-written.
• Import from your profile: If you're already on StartHere.care, your existing panel information carries over automatically.

Walk through the full experience here, or grab the one-page overview.

Crowdsourced Panel Intelligence

This is the part I'm most excited about. As therapists use the panel tracker, we're aggregating anonymized data about which panels are actually accepting new providers. You'll see what percentage of therapists report a given panel as open in your state and region.

This matters because the "panels are full" problem is real, but it's not evenly distributed. Some payers are genuinely backlogged. Others tell everyone they're full while still accepting providers through certain channels. And a growing piece of the problem is that companies like Headway and Talkspace credential hundreds of therapists under a single group NPI, filling panel slots in bulk before independent providers even apply.¹ When those therapists leave, the slots don't always reopen cleanly. The system wasn't built for this scale of churn.

Crowdsourced data won't fix that overnight, but it gives solo practitioners something they've never had: visibility into what's actually happening on the ground, reported by people going through it right now.

What It Does NOT Do

I want to be direct about this because the credentialing space is full of overpromising:

• It does not submit applications for you. You still fill out each payer's portal yourself. The Hub organizes your info so that process is faster, but we're not clicking "submit" on your behalf.
• It does not replace CAQH ProView. You still need a CAQH account. The Hub helps you keep your CAQH data organized and reminds you when re-attestation is due, but it's not a CAQH alternative.
• It does not guarantee panel acceptance. No one can guarantee that. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.
• We are not a credentialing service or billing company. We don't take a cut of your claims, we don't own your payer relationships, and we don't lock you into anything.

Why We Built This

Credentialing is the #1 bottleneck for new therapy practices. I hear it from therapists constantly. You went to school for years, got your hours, passed your exam, got your license, and then you spend months wrestling with paperwork before you can see your first insurance client.

The information itself isn't complicated. It's the same 30 things, over and over. The problem is that it's scattered. Your NPI confirmation is in an email from 2023. Your malpractice certificate is a PDF somewhere on your laptop. Your CAQH login is in a password manager, maybe. Your taxonomy code? You had to look that up once but you can't remember where you wrote it down.

Every payer asks for the same stuff in a different order, through a different portal, with different formatting requirements. It's not hard. It's just tedious, disorganized, and unforgiving if you miss a deadline.

The other thing that bothered me: platforms like Headway and Alma credential therapists under their contracts. That's fine until you leave. When you leave, those panel slots belong to the platform, not to you. You start the credentialing process over from scratch. Your data, your payer relationships, your re-credentialing timeline. All gone.

We wanted therapists to own their credentialing data permanently. Not rent access to it through a platform that takes 10-15% of every session.

Who It's For

The Credentialing Hub is for:

• New therapists starting a private practice who need to get on panels for the first time
• Experienced therapists who are tired of managing credentialing info across 15 browser tabs
• Anyone leaving a group practice or platform who needs to re-credential under their own NPI
• Practice owners who want an organized system for tracking multiple providers' credentials

If you already have a credentialing service you're happy with, you probably don't need this. If you're doing it yourself and it feels chaotic, this is for you.

Get Started

The Credentialing Hub is free and available now. No credit card, no trial period, no catch.

If you already have a StartHere.care account, the Hub is in your dashboard. If you don't, create an account here. It takes about 60 seconds.

For background on the full credentialing process, our Insurance Credentialing Guide covers everything from CAQH setup to common rejection reasons.

— Jeff

Notes

¹: Large platforms credential therapists under group NPIs, which can consume panel capacity in bulk. When individual therapists leave these platforms, panel slots don't always reopen, making it harder for independent providers to get credentialed. This dynamic is a growing concern among solo practitioners and state insurance regulators.