Cigna and Evernorth provider enrollment guide

How does Cigna and Evernorth provider enrollment work?

Cigna Healthcare credentials its own medical network. Behavioral health clinicians, clinics and facilities go to Evernorth Behavioral Health, which is what Cigna Behavioral Health, Inc. officially became on September 1, 2021.

Most patients behind Cigna’s network come through employers: at Dec 31, 2025, 79% of Cigna Healthcare’s 18.1 million medical customers were in administrative-services-only arrangements, self-funded plans of employers, unions and other groups that pay Cigna for network access and claims administration. The total was down 5% from 19.1 million a year earlier, mostly because of the HCSC sale.

How do I get credentialed with Cigna?

1. Call first: 1 (800) 88Cigna (882-4462), credentialing option. In most cases the call tells you whether you meet Cigna’s basic guidelines to apply. Facilities and ancillary providers need more than the standard form holds and get their next steps on that call.
2. Watch your email for the application packet, with everything you need to start.
3. Have CAQH ready. With your permission, Cigna pulls your CAQH profile electronically, but only in “Initial Profile Complete” or “Re-attestation” status (CAQH and NPI). It also accepts one other credentialing database, attested within 100 days, or, where your state requires it, the state’s own application, signed and mailed with its documents.
4. Sign the application and the participation agreement. Cigna’s credentialing criteria list both.

What does Cigna Healthcare check in provider credentialing?

Cigna’s verification list for medical providers, beside Evernorth’s minimums for individual behavioral health clinicians:

Sources: Cigna, Health care provider credentialing; Evernorth, Join the network. Read Oct 20, 2026.

No DEA or CDS certificate, or no privileges at a participating hospital? Cigna’s DEA certificate form and its Hospital Coverage Agreement both go by fax to 1 (877) 391-8228. Cigna also makes on-site visits to primary care physicians, OB/GYNs and high-volume behavioral health specialists.

How long does Cigna provider enrollment take?

Cigna’s 45 to 60 days run from receipt of the packet, and Cigna emails you along the way: to confirm receipt, to ask for anything missing (an application whose items never arrive is closed, by email), to report a delay past that window, and to confirm approval with your effective date. A committee of community physicians and the plan’s medical director decides. Directories and claim systems are then loaded, typically within 10 business days, and a welcome letter follows within 60 days of the decision, sooner where state law requires. Evernorth’s 90 calendar days cover its whole process, “or as otherwise required by law.”

Aetna, by contrast, publishes no practitioner timeline; the major plans’ figures sit side by side on our credentialing overview.

How does Evernorth provider enrollment work for Cigna behavioral health?

• Individual clinicians file the Evernorth Behavioral Health Provider Information Form in the Evernorth Provider Portal. Your organization’s website access manager must first assign you the “Contracting entitlement,” and “All applicants, including third-party organizations, must apply via the portal.” The form can’t be saved halfway: finish it in one session. You agree to participate at every service location, and participation “is not limited to specific Tax Identification Numbers.”
• Clinics, four or more independently licensed behavioral health providers sharing a tax ID, location and administrative staff, email the Clinic Information Form to BehavioralOutpatientClinic@Evernorth.com, with a service location form (physical, home-visit-only or telehealth-only) for each site.
• Facilities (inpatient, residential, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, detoxification and other programs that bill on a UB-04) need a state license; liability of $1 million/$3 million for residential or inpatient care, or $1 million/$1 million for PHP/IOP only; and behavioral health accreditation, such as The Joint Commission or CARF, and/or Medicare certification. They apply to BehavioralFacilityRecruitment@Evernorth.com.

Evernorth beside Medicare, Medicaid and the other behavioral networks, license by license: mental health credentialing and our page for therapy practices.

What happened to Cigna HealthSpring provider enrollment?

On March 19, 2025, The Cigna Group completed the sale of its Medicare Advantage, Cigna Supplemental Benefits, Medicare Part D and CareAllies businesses to Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC). CMS’s October 2026 enrollment file lists Florida contract H5410, HealthSpring of Florida, Inc., under HCSC, with 15,518 of HCSC’s 17,111 Florida Medicare Advantage members. A Medicare Advantage network is now a question for that plan, not for Cigna’s credentialing line: each Medicare Advantage organization selects and credentials its own providers under 42 CFR 422.204, separately from your Medicare enrollment.

How do I set up Cigna EFT enrollment and ERA?

• EFT: log in to CignaforHCP.com, select Working with Cigna, then Enroll in Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) Options, and complete the form. Cigna sends a pre-note to verify the account; if it isn’t returned with errors, EFT starts on your next payment cycle, and Manage EFT Settings shows the status.
• ERA: tell your EDI vendor you want Cigna ERAs and give it the enrollment information; with more than one TIN, complete a separate enrollment for each. Cigna finalizes the registration within 10 business days, and ERAs start on the next payment cycle.

How do I keep Cigna and Evernorth credentialing current?

Cigna recredentials every three years in most states, on the same criteria as your first credentialing, and it does it by email: it asks you to update and re-sign your CAQH information (recredentialing).

Evernorth checks your directory information. Verify it “at least every 90 days”; without that verification, “your profile may be removed from the provider directory” until it’s confirmed. Update in Provider.Evernorth.com (My Practice, then Directory Update) or at 1 (800) 926-2273: say “health care professional,” then prompt 4. The federal text behind removal, for group health plans and insurers:

“…that establishes a procedure for the removal of such a provider or facility with respect to which such plan or issuer has been unable to verify such information during a period specified by the plan or issuer;”

What you can do today

1. Sort your clinicians by door: medical providers to Cigna; behavioral health clinicians, clinics and facilities to Evernorth; a therapist in a Cigna medical practice who takes no community referrals to the practice’s medical contract.
2. Bring each CAQH profile to Initial Profile Complete or Re-attestation status, with Cigna and Evernorth allowed to use it.
3. Medical: call 1 (800) 88Cigna (882-4462), choose credentialing, and watch for the emailed packet.
4. Behavioral: have your website access manager assign the Contracting entitlement, gather the documents in the table’s Evernorth column, then complete the Provider Information Form in one sitting.
5. Check malpractice limits against the table, and fax any DEA certificate form or Hospital Coverage Agreement you need.
6. Set up payment: EFT in CignaforHCP.com, and a request to your EDI vendor for Cigna ERAs.

Advixor’s payer enrollment service covers the preparation, submission, monitoring and follow-up of each credentialing and enrollment application.