Behavioral Health Payer Portal Directory

Why Behavioral Health Payer Portals Matter

Behavioral health treatment centers operate inside a tangle of payer portals. Each major commercial payer has at least one portal, each carve-out managed behavioral health organization (MBHO) has its own, each state Medicaid program has its own, and each Medicaid managed care organization has its own on top of that. A single patient admission can touch three different portals before the first claim goes out.

This hub is a directory of the behavioral health provider portals that matter most. It is scoped to behavioral-health-specific workflows: credentialing, prior authorization, concurrent review, verification of benefits, claim status, and appeals. For the full insurance directory with color-coded cards and provincial filters, visit the insurance directory. For the broader credentialing playbook, see the credentialing hub.

The payers below are grouped into two tiers. Tier 1 covers the largest commercial and carve-out MBHO portals that every behavioral health operator touches on a daily basis. Tier 2 covers secondary portals that matter in specific geographies or for specific populations. Use the links to go directly to each payer’s provider-side workflow or to read the payer-specific credentialing and billing guide.

Tier 1: The Big Six Behavioral Health Payer Portals

These six portals handle the majority of commercial behavioral health lives and a substantial share of Medicaid-carved lives in the United States. Credentialing, authorization, and claim workflows through these portals should be automated or at minimum tracked in your RCM software and EHR platform.

Optum Behavioral Health — Provider Express

Optum Behavioral Health manages the behavioral health benefits for UnitedHealthcare and a long tail of employer-sponsored and Medicare Advantage plans that carve behavioral health out to Optum. The provider portal is Provider Express at providerexpress.com. Registration requires your NPI and Tax ID. Once registered, Provider Express handles eligibility checks, authorization submission, concurrent review, claims status, and fee schedule downloads for Optum-managed members.

Behavioral health organizations typically credential directly through Provider Express rather than through UHC’s medical network for outpatient, IOP, PHP, and residential services. Because Optum also administers benefits for non-UHC employer plans, Provider Express is the single portal that affects the most commercial behavioral health volume in the country. Clinical criteria include ASAM Criteria for substance use disorder, LOCUS for mental health, and Optum’s own Level of Care Guidelines. Read the Optum Behavioral Health payer guide for credentialing, prior authorization, and billing specifics.

Carelon Behavioral Health

Carelon Behavioral Health — formerly Beacon Health Options, originally ValueOptions — is the behavioral health subsidiary of Elevance Health and manages behavioral health for most Anthem members plus many state Medicaid behavioral health carve-outs. The provider portal at carelonbehavioralhealth.com/providers supports authorization submission, eligibility check, claim status, and access to Carelon’s clinical guidelines and appeals instructions.

Carelon uses a combination of ASAM Criteria, InterQual, and Carelon proprietary clinical guidelines. The most common provider workflow error with Carelon is routing claims to Anthem rather than Carelon for Anthem members whose behavioral health is carved out; confirm the correct payer ID with your clearinghouse. Read the Carelon Behavioral Health payer guide for the full workflow.

Magellan Healthcare

Magellan Health is one of the three largest MBHOs and is particularly significant in the Medicaid behavioral health carve-out space. The provider portal at magellanprovider.com supports eligibility, authorization, concurrent review, claims, and access to Magellan Care Guidelines. Magellan also holds major federal contracts including the Department of Defense and Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, so providers serving federal populations should credential with Magellan.

Since Centene acquired Magellan in January 2022, some behavioral health functions have been integrated with Centene’s broader Medicaid operations, though Magellan generally continues to operate with its own provider portal and clinical guidelines. Always verify whether a given state Medicaid member is managed by Magellan or by a Centene internal team. Read the Magellan payer guide.

UnitedHealthcare — UHC Provider Portal

UnitedHealthcare is the largest commercial insurer in the United States. The UHC Provider portal at uhcprovider.com handles eligibility, benefits, claim status, and appeals for the medical side of UHC coverage. Behavioral health generally flows to Provider Express rather than UHC Provider, but UHC Provider remains relevant for credentialing of behavioral health providers who also bill medical services and for claim status on mixed-benefit claims.

UHC uses ASAM Criteria for SUD and LOCUS for mental health via Optum’s clinical review. Read the UnitedHealthcare payer guide.

Anthem — Availity Portal

Anthem is the largest Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee in the United States, operating in 14 states under Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, and related brands. Behavioral health authorization and clinical review typically flow through Carelon Behavioral Health, while credentialing and claims remain in Anthem’s provider network systems. Anthem uses the Availity multi-payer portal at availity.com for most provider transactions, including eligibility, claim status, and remittance advice.

Availity is not Anthem-specific; Cigna, many BCBS plans, and other commercial payers also use it as a shared front end. For behavioral health-specific workflows like prior authorization and concurrent review, the workflow shifts to Carelon’s portal once the Availity eligibility check confirms Carelon is the administrator. Read the Anthem payer guide.

Lucet (formerly New Directions Behavioral Health)

Lucet is a joint venture MBHO owned by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas, along with contracted commercial and government programs. The provider portal at providers.lucethealth.com supports eligibility, authorization, concurrent review, and claim status for Lucet-administered benefits.

Lucet rebranded from New Directions Behavioral Health in 2023. Providers previously credentialed with New Directions should have had their network status transition to Lucet, but verify through the provider portal. Lucet uses ASAM Criteria for SUD and its own proprietary guidelines for mental health. Read the Lucet payer guide.

Tier 2: Secondary Behavioral Health Portals

These portals matter regionally, for specific populations, or as secondary payers alongside the Big Six. Maintain credentials and logins for these as your payer mix dictates.

For the complete list of payer profiles with search and filter, see the insurance directory.

• Evernorth Behavioral Health — Cigna’s behavioral health subsidiary; supports Cigna’s commercial behavioral health workflow.
• Aetna — CVS Health-owned commercial insurer with national footprint.
• Humana — Medicare Advantage and commercial insurer.
• Optum EAP — employer-sponsored Employee Assistance Program network.
• Beacon Health Options — legacy page covering the former name of Carelon Behavioral Health.
• Blue Cross Blue Shield plans — 34 independent BCBS licensees; each with its own provider portal and credentialing process.
• Medicaid — state Medicaid enrollment and fee-for-service billing.
• Medicare FFS — Medicare Fee-for-Service provider enrollment and billing.

Common Payer Portal Workflows

Behavioral health treatment centers touch payer portals for a consistent set of workflows. Standardizing these workflows across payers and integrating them into your EHR and RCM platform is how operators at scale keep admissions moving and denials low.

Eligibility and Benefit Verification

Run eligibility within 24 hours of anticipated admission. The portal check should confirm active coverage, behavioral health benefits, covered levels of care, deductible and out-of-pocket status, prior authorization requirements, and any carve-out arrangement that routes authorization or claims through a different entity. Document the verification date, the rep or reference number, and the benefit summary in the patient record. ’s verification of benefits workflow automates the VOB step and feeds the result into admissions without re-keying.

Prior Authorization and Utilization Review

Submit prior authorization for every residential, PHP, and IOP admission, and for detoxification and inpatient psychiatric services where the plan requires it. Each submission should include clinical documentation structured around the applicable clinical criteria — ASAM Criteria for SUD, InterQual or LOCUS or the payer’s proprietary guidelines for mental health. Track concurrent review deadlines (every 3 to 7 days for residential, every 7 to 14 days for PHP) and staff peer-to-peer reviews within the timeframe the payer requires. Integrated utilization review software calendars the concurrent review dates across every active case and alerts staff before a deadline slips.

Claim Submission and Status

Electronic claims via clearinghouses using 837I or 837P is the default for every major payer portal. The claim must include the authorization number, the correct payer ID for behavioral health (which may differ from the medical payer ID at the same parent company), and the correct taxonomy code matching the credentialed service line. Portal claim status checks surface payer adjudication decisions, any pends for additional information, and remit dates. For appeals, the portal typically references the denial letter and the timeframe to appeal (usually 30 to 180 days depending on payer and plan type).

Credentialing and Contract Management

Most behavioral health payer portals include a provider profile section where credentialing status, contract effective dates, and provider demographic updates are managed. Re-attest CAQH on its recurring schedule. Update the portal immediately when clinicians change facilities, when licenses are renewed, and when malpractice coverage is updated. Read the credentialing hub for the full payer-by-payer credentialing timeline cheat sheet and common delay patterns.

How Connects Payer Portals to Your Revenue Cycle

RCM module tracks authorizations, credentialing status, and claim status across payers so operators do not manually reconcile across a dozen portals each week. The EHR module helps teams organize clinical documentation around payer-specific review frameworks, so prior authorization submissions pass with less back-and-forth. The verification of benefits workflow triggers at intake and feeds admissions decisions without re-keying. The utilization review workflow calendars every concurrent review date so peer-to-peer requests go in on time.

Together these workflows replace the spreadsheet-and-sticky-notes approach most behavioral health operators default to when managing payer portals and move payer-portal activity into the same platform where clinical documentation lives.

Common questions

Official sources

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