Cigna Provider Credentialing: Medical, Behavioral, and Dental

This section covers the medical network; therapists and other behavioral providers should go to the Evernorth section below.

Cigna starts medical credentialing with a conversation. Its own instruction is to "call Cigna Healthcare Provider Services at 1 (800) 88Cigna (882-4462)" and, in Cigna's words, "In most cases, you'll be informed on this call if you meet the basic guidelines to apply for credentialing."

If you have searched for a "Cigna provider enrollment form" and found nothing official, that is expected. Cigna's credentialing page links no downloadable medical enrollment form. The only PDFs it links are supporting forms for applicants without a DEA certificate or participating-hospital privileges, and it accepts a mailed state application only where the state requires one. It issues the packet conditionally: "If you meet the basic guidelines to apply for credentialing, you will receive an email with an application packet and all the information you'll need to get started." The same page puts the screen first: "Before starting the application process, we'll need some information from you to confirm that you meet the basic guidelines to apply for credentialing."

After you submit, Cigna states the review "typically takes 45 to 60 days to complete." Two details in Cigna's own description matter for planning. First, an application can be closed for missing information — "If we do not receive missing information, we'll send you an email notification that we closed your application." A closed application is not a pending one, so answer Cigna's emails requesting missing documentation before it closes the file. Second, approval and the system load are separate steps: "we will upload your provider information into our directories and claim systems which typically happens within 10 business days." Until that load completes, Cigna's directories and claim systems do not yet hold your provider information, so confirm it is loaded before you bill.

For status, Cigna's published routes are email to PSSCentral@Cigna.com with your full name and Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN), or a call to 1 (800) 882-4462 and the credentialing option; the status section lists no portal for medical applications, so disciplined follow-up matters. Evernorth is different: its provider portal lets individual behavioral applicants track their application status.

Whichever route you use, Cigna asks for a completed application packet covering a valid, unrestricted license, a DEA certificate for each practicing state and a CDS certificate if the state requires one, clinical privileges in good standing at a Cigna-participating hospital (or a Hospital Coverage Agreement form), board certification status, education and training, a five-year work history with any gap over six months explained, sanctions disclosure, malpractice claims history and adequate malpractice insurance.

Cigna's Medical Resources page (footer date December 3, 2025) says an accepted applicant receives a "welcome" letter "within 60 days of the date of the decision, or sooner, if required by state law." Cigna's credentialing page separately says an approved applicant receives an email with the effective date; the two pages do not say how the letter relates to that email, so ask Provider Services for your effective date. The same Medical Resources page carries a Texas-only notice that set an application window of February 1 through 28, 2026 for physicians, pharmacies, dentists and other providers, with responses "within 90 days of receipt."

The medical sequence, in the order Cigna publishes it:

1. Call Provider Services at 1 (800) 882-4462, choose the credentialing option, and confirm you meet the basic guidelines to apply.
2. If you meet them, receive the application packet by email.
3. If your information is on CAQH, authorize Cigna Healthcare to access your data, review the profile for any changes and ensure it has the status "Initial Profile Complete" or "Re-attestation"; if it is on One Healthport/Medversant, review the profile and ensure it has been attested within 100 days.
4. Submit, then respond to any information request before Cigna closes the file.
5. Expect the credentialing process to typically take 45 to 60 days once Cigna receives the packet.
6. After approval, Cigna says it typically loads provider information into its directories and claim systems within 10 business days; confirm that load before billing.

Cigna's credentialing page sets out three tracks, medical, behavioral and dental, and what each publishes differs:

Cigna participates in CAQH and accepts applications through it — "Providers can submit an application, via CAQH at www.caqh.org" (Cigna's wording; CAQH now trades as DataSpring, powered by CAQH, and www.caqh.org redirects to www.dataspring.com). This section covers the medical route; Evernorth's separate CAQH requirements are in the Evernorth section below.

For the CAQH route Cigna's credentialing page lists three steps: authorize Cigna Healthcare to access your data, review the profile for any changes, and ensure the profile has the status "Initial Profile Complete" or "Re-attestation." Without the authorization Cigna cannot read the profile, so do all three before you submit.

Cigna also accepts One Healthport/Medversant as an alternative channel, with its own freshness instruction: "Ensure that it has been attested within 100 days." Check that profile's attestation date separately from your CAQH profile.

For the medical network, Cigna's published consequence applies when it asks you to recredential: it emails you to verify your CAQH information and re-sign it, sends up to three reminder emails, and states that if you do not log into CAQH to verify and sign, "it will result in termination with the Cigna Healthcare network." Our guide to the CAQH Provider Data Portal (formerly ProView) covers the attestation cycle and what the profile holds.

Therapists and other independently licensed behavioral health practitioners join through Evernorth, not Cigna's medical process, in most cases: individual providers apply with the Provider Information Form in the Evernorth Provider Portal. This is also where this payer's published guidance moved in 2026: Evernorth paused new individual and clinic intake on 1 June 2026 and replaced its credentialing page with a rebuilt one by 31 August 2026.

Start with the name. Cigna's own credentialing hub states that "Effective September 1, 2021, Cigna Behavioral Health, Inc. officially became Evernorth® Behavioral Health, Inc." Guidance still telling therapists to apply to "Cigna Behavioral Health" is pointed at an entity renamed five years ago.

Second, the pause. Evernorth's page no longer shows a pause notice, and it now publishes application instructions for individual providers, clinics and facilities. From 1 June 2026 Evernorth had paused intake from new individual and clinic providers and invited them to complete an interest form or to "revisit this webpage after September 1, 2026." The old credentialing page has since been retired: its address now redirects to a rebuilt join-the-network page, which opens "Thank you for your interest in joining the Evernorth® Behavioral Health provider network" and carries no interest form. Read 1 October 2026. A guide that still presents the pause notice as current, including earlier versions of this page, is out of date.

The rebuilt page also restates the clock. Evernorth now states that "The process to join the Evernorth network can take up to 90 calendar days to complete (or as otherwise required by law)" in the individual-provider block only; the earlier page, in the Internet Archive captures of 17 April 2026 (before the pause) and 9 August 2026, gave "up to 90 days" for individual providers, clinics and facilities alike. For individual providers, ninety calendar days is the number to plan a behavioral payer-mix around; the clinic and facility sections now state no timeline.

One procedural condition matters for planning. The individual-provider application cannot be done in pieces: "Once you begin the application, it must be completed in a single session. You will not be able to save your progress or return later to finish." Before you can open the form you need an Evernorth Provider Portal account with the Contracting entitlement. If your organization already has an account, its website access manager assigns the entitlement (My Practice > Manage User Access), and you then go to My Practice > Contracting; third-party organizations must also apply through the portal. Because progress cannot be saved, have the required items to hand: Evernorth's per-provider list includes a license to practice independently, proof of professional and general liability insurance with limits of $1 million/$1 million for most providers and $1 million/$3 million for physicians and psychiatric nurses with prescriptive authority (Texas and Florida carry lower recommended minimums), a CAQH ID and a W-9 for each TIN. Assemble the file first.

More current conditions:

• State routing changed. "If you practice in Maryland, Ohio or Washington: As of September 1, 2026, providers in these states must apply through the Evernorth provider portal." The 17 April 2026 capture shows these three states then emailed Evernorth instead and did not need the Provider Information Form.
• Texas. Evernorth's page carries Cigna's Texas notice inside its exceptions block: "Cigna will accept applications for participation in their networks of physicians and other providers from February 1, 2026 through February 28, 2026." Responses are to be made within 90 days of receipt. The page does not say whether the notice applies to behavioral applicants who use the Evernorth portal, and it states no Texas restriction on the portal route. Ask BehavioralProviderRecruitment@Evernorth.com whether it applies to you before you decide to wait.
• CAQH is required. Evernorth asks for a CAQH ID, relies on CAQH to verify provider information and says to keep your profile complete, current and accurate to avoid delays. Evernorth must be authorized to access your profile, and the attestation must be current: "Must re-attest every 120 days, or every 180 days for Illinois providers." CAQH's own provider user guide states the same cycle.
• Minnesota, North Dakota and western Wisconsin. Evernorth has an alliance with HealthPartners for managed care and contracts for Employee Assistance Program (EAP) services only. For managed-care contract consideration, complete the HealthPartners Behavioral Health Contract Application on the HealthPartners Provider Portal; apply to Evernorth through its portal only for EAP.
• Clinicians at a participating Cigna medical practice. If you provide behavioral services there and do not accept direct referrals from the community, call 1 (800) 882-4462 to join under the practice's medical contract; if you accept direct referrals or also practice outside the medical practice, apply through the Evernorth Provider Portal.

Provisional credentialing is limited: Evernorth says individual providers may receive it "in certain circumstances," decided case by case, and for clinics and facilities it states: "No provisional, conditional, or temporary approvals will be accepted." The participation condition still binds: network providers "must treat all covered patients equally and must agree to participate at all service locations. Participation is not limited to specific Tax Identification Numbers (TINs)." In plain terms, participation applies at every service location, whatever the TIN. For questions, individual providers email BehavioralProviderRecruitment@Evernorth.com with their NPI or TIN; clinics submit their forms to BehavioralOutpatientClinic@Evernorth.com and facilities to BehavioralFacilityRecruitment@Evernorth.com. Evernorth lists 1 (888) 736-7499 for technical help with its provider portal, and Cigna's credentialing page also lists 1 (800) 926-2273 for behavioral questions.

This section is the reason we date payer facts. Evernorth's old page still showed the pause when it was archived on 9 August 2026 and had been replaced by a redirect to the rebuilt page by 31 August 2026 — so treat 1 October 2026 as the read date and confirm before you build a timeline on it. The same dating applies to the behavioral health and mental health practices we bill for. Cigna is one of five payers here: our guide to how each payer routes therapists sets Evernorth against what Optum, Carelon, Aetna and Medicare publish — and what they do not.

Dental is a third intake path with its own number. Cigna instructs dentists to "call at 1 (800) Cigna24 (244-6224)" or to send "an email with your name, office name, office address, and Council for Affordable Quality Health Care® (CAQH) ID to DentistEnrollment@cignahealthcare.com." Note what the email route requires: Cigna asks you to include your CAQH ID, so if you start by email the CAQH profile has to exist first; the phone route lists no CAQH requirement, and Cigna also accepts credentials through its e-onboarding tool.

For dental, Cigna names three electronic channels. In its words, "You can submit your credentials electronically using the CAQH Universal Credentialing DataSource, One Healthport/Medversant, or our e-onboarding tool."

Texas is the exception. Cigna Dental Health of Texas published a defined application window: February 1 through 28, 2026, with responses within 90 days of receipt. That window has closed for 2026 and Cigna's page publishes no later one, so a Texas dental practice should ask Cigna Dental directly (1 (800) 244-6224 or DentistEnrollment@cignahealthcare.com) when it can apply. Confirm the current window with Cigna directly before planning around it, because Cigna publishes the window as a dated notice rather than a standing rule.

On Cigna's Medical Resources pages, reassessment follows a three-year baseline: "Each provider undergoes an initial assessment and reassessment at least every three years." The same page says its screening uses industry standards such as those issued by states, Medicare, Cigna and the NCQA.

Cigna qualifies the cycle geographically — "Recredentialing is required every three years in most states" — without listing which states differ. Treat three years as the planning default and verify the cycle for any state where you hold a license, because the pages we read do not list the exceptions.

For the medical network, the termination Cigna describes is tied to its recredentialing request: if you do not log into CAQH to verify and sign when Cigna asks, it says that will result in termination with the Cigna Healthcare network. Cigna's dental block describes a notification with "clear instructions" and states no termination consequence (its recredentialing questions go to Dental.Recredentialing@cignahealthcare.com), and Evernorth's page states no recredentialing cycle or consequence. Our provider enrollment checklist lists the documents that carry expiration dates.

Some questions about this payer have no published answer on the pages cited here, and saying so is more useful than inventing one.

For the medical network, the Cigna pages cited here describe no distinct workflow for adding a provider to an existing group agreement: Cigna's credentialing hub and both provider-resource pages draw no group-versus-individual distinction, so the only published starting point is the same Provider Services call as for a new applicant, with PSSCentral@Cigna.com for status. Ask on that call whether adding a clinician follows the new-applicant steps. For behavioral health, Evernorth does draw the distinction, as the Evernorth section above and the add-a-provider answer below set out. Any guide presenting a separate, official "add to group" procedure for the Cigna medical network is describing something these pages do not document.

For the medical network, the Cigna pages cited here give 45 to 60 days for credentialing once Cigna receives the packet, and no separate timeline for contracting. Cigna's Medical Resources pages list a signed agreement among the credentialing criteria and do not say whether contracting time sits inside that window. Evernorth's 90-calendar-day figure is stated for the whole process to join its network, which it describes as contracting and credentialing. On the Cigna medical side, do not assume contracting fits inside the 45 to 60 days.

The Cigna and Evernorth pages cited here publish no state-by-state variation table, no standing panel open-or-closed status table, and no acceptance-rate data. Where a competing page states a Cigna acceptance rate or a state-specific processing average, it is not a figure these pages publish. The state-specific rules Cigna and Evernorth publish include: the Texas application-window notices (February 1 through 28, 2026, with responses within 90 days) on Cigna's medical and dental pages and in the exceptions block of Evernorth's page, which does not say whether its notice applies to behavioral applicants; Evernorth's requirement that Maryland, Ohio and Washington providers apply through its portal from 1 September 2026; its 180-day CAQH re-attestation cycle for Illinois providers; its HealthPartners routing for Minnesota, North Dakota and western Wisconsin; and its minimum recommended professional-liability amounts for Texas and Florida.

One caveat on our own sourcing: the Evernorth pause notice we cited is no longer published at its original address, which now redirects to the rebuilt page. We checked its wording against an archived copy captured on 9 August 2026, and the pre-pause wording against a copy captured on 17 April 2026. We re-read every page cited here on 1 October 2026; the two Cigna Medical Resources pages we cite carry footer dates of December 3, 2025 and October 24, 2019. Payer pages change without notice, and a credentialing plan built on a page you have not re-read is a plan built on a snapshot.