You built your CAQH profile once, six panels pulled it, and you moved on with your caseload. Then an application you submitted in the spring goes quiet, a rep says "we're waiting on CAQH," and you discover the profile you finished months ago is now marked expired. This is the 120-day rule, and it catches almost everyone once.
CAQH requires you to re-attest your profile every 120 days (180 in Illinois). When attestation lapses, payers can no longer pull your data — in-progress credentialing and recredentialing freeze silently while existing claims keep paying. Re-attesting takes minutes: log in, review each section, click Review and Attest.
What does CAQH attestation actually do?
Attestation is your signature on the data. When you click Review and Attest in the CAQH Provider Data Portal (the platform formerly called CAQH ProView), you're certifying that everything in the profile — licenses, practice locations, work history, malpractice coverage — is accurate as of that date. Payers are only allowed to rely on attested data.
That's why the clock matters. An attestation is treated as fresh for 120 days. After that, the profile status on your dashboard flips from "Re-attestation Due" to expired, and every payer that queries it gets nothing. CAQH itself has said unattested profiles are one of the most common reasons credentialing stalls, per its own re-attestation guidance.
If you set the profile up through a group or a platform, the attestation obligation is still yours. Delegating data entry doesn't delegate the signature. See our CAQH setup guide if you're starting from zero.
What actually breaks when your profile expires mid-credentialing?
The dangerous part is what doesn't break. Panels you already belong to keep paying claims, your EHR looks normal, and no payer emails you. An expired profile fails quietly, in exactly one place: any credentialing review that needs to pull your data right now.
Three things freeze. A new application you submitted stops moving the day the payer's analyst tries to pull the profile and can't — and most won't notify you; the file just sits. A recredentialing cycle (every three years at most payers) fails its data pull the same way, which can eventually threaten an existing contract. And any correction you made — a new address, a renewed license — is invisible until you re-attest, because payers only see attested data.
A composite from files we've reviewed: an LMHC in Georgia submitted to Aetna and Cigna in June, went on maternity leave in July, and let two attestation reminders sit in a spam folder. Both applications idled for eleven weeks. She re-attested in October and both restarted — from the verification step, not from where they'd stopped. The lapse didn't just pause the clock; it rewound part of it.
Re-attesting after a lapse restores access, but payers may re-verify anything that aged out in the meantime — a license that renewed, a certificate of insurance that expired. Budget for the restart, and check how credentialing timelines actually run before assuming you've only lost the lapse itself.
Which reminders will CAQH send, and where do they go?
CAQH emails you before the deadline — the reminders come from its automated system addresses and reference your attestation in the subject line — and providers report them landing in spam, Promotions, or an old practice inbox far more often than a monitored one. The single highest-leverage fix is an inbox filter: anything from caqh.org skips the spam folder and gets a label.
Don't build your system on those emails. Check the email address on your Personal Information screen (it's often whoever created the account — a former biller, a group admin), then set your own recurring calendar reminder at day 90. That 30-day buffer absorbs a vacation or a document that needs rescanning.
The 7 profile mistakes that stall credentialing
Re-attesting a wrong profile just certifies wrong data faster. These seven errors cause most of the payer follow-up requests we see, and address mismatches cause more of them than the next three combined.
| # | Mistake | Where it lives in the portal | The fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Practice address doesn't match your NPI or W-9 | Practice Locations | Make NPPES, the W-9, and CAQH character-identical (Suite vs Ste matters) |
| 2 | Work-history gap over 6 months, unexplained | Employment Information | Add a one-line explanation entry for every gap |
| 3 | Expired malpractice COI still uploaded | Documents + Professional Liability Insurance | Upload the renewal COI and update the policy dates the same week you get it |
| 4 | Blurry or cropped document scans | Documents | Re-scan as full-page PDFs; a rejected document sits unread until you notice |
| 5 | Payer not authorized to view the profile | Authorize | Grant global authorization, or check every plan you've applied to |
| 6 | Old practice address after a move | Practice Locations | End-date the old location — don't just edit it — and add the new one |
| 7 | Stale location roster (locations you left still listed as active) | Practice Locations | Archive anything you no longer see clients at; payers verify each one |
Number 2 deserves its own warning: payers pause the entire review to query an unexplained gap. If your history has internship-to-licensure lag or a parenting break, format it the way reviewers expect before it costs you a round trip.
How do you make attestation a non-event?
Put it on a quarterly rhythm you control, tied to a calendar you actually look at. Ten minutes a quarter keeps the profile pull-ready year-round — which matters because you can't predict when a payer will query it. Some practices have a coordinator run this across every clinician; paneled.ai handles the same maintenance as part of credentialing. Either way, the checklist is the same.
QUARTERLY CAQH CHECK (10 minutes, every 90 days)
Log in: proview.caqh.org (CAQH Provider Data Portal)
[ ] Dashboard — status says "Complete" or "Re-attestation Due"? If "Expired": stop, fix, attest today. [ ] Personal Information — contact email is one I actually read [ ] Professional IDs — license expiration date is in the future; renewed license uploaded if it changed [ ] Practice Locations — every active location is real; old ones end-dated; address matches NPPES and my W-9 exactly [ ] Employment Information — no new gap over 6 months without a one-line explanation [ ] Professional Liability Insurance — policy dates current; current COI uploaded under Documents (delete the expired one) [ ] Documents — no items flagged as failed or expired [ ] Authorize — every payer I've applied to can view my profile (or global authorization is on) [ ] Click "Review and Attest" — even if nothing changed [ ] Note today's date; next check in 90 days
CALENDAR REMINDER (copy into Google/Outlook, repeat every 90 days):
Title: CAQH re-attest — do today (expires in ~30 days) Notes: proview.caqh.org > review all sections > Review and Attest. CAQH ID: [YOUR CAQH ID]. Username: [USERNAME]. COI renews [POLICY RENEWAL MONTH] — upload new certificate first if this is that quarter.
Set the reminder to repeat every 90 days rather than 120 — attesting early restarts the clock from the new date, so you never operate inside the danger window. If your license or COI renews at a fixed month each year, note it in the reminder so the document upload and the attestation happen in one sitting.
Common questions
- How often do I have to re-attest my CAQH profile?
- Every 120 days — roughly three times a year. Illinois runs on a 180-day cycle. Attesting doesn't mean re-entering everything; it means logging in to the CAQH Provider Data Portal, reviewing each section, and clicking Review and Attest. If nothing changed, the whole thing takes about ten minutes.
- What happens if my CAQH attestation expires?
- Your profile flips to expired status and payers lose the ability to pull it. Claims for panels you already joined keep paying, so nothing looks wrong. What freezes silently is anything in progress — new applications sit in a holding pattern, and recredentialing pulls fail — until you log in and re-attest.
- Does an expired CAQH profile affect claims I'm already billing?
- Not immediately. Payers you're already contracted with keep processing claims. The damage lands on in-progress credentialing, new panel applications, and recredentialing cycles — payers can't access an unattested profile, so those reviews stop without anyone calling you. A long lapse during recredentialing can eventually put a contract at risk.
- Why didn't I get the CAQH reminder emails?
- You probably did. CAQH sends automated reminders from its system addresses as your attestation date approaches, and they routinely land in spam or Promotions folders — or go to an old practice email your former biller set up. Log in, check the contact email on file, and add a calendar reminder you control.
- Can a payer see my CAQH profile without my permission?
- No. On the Authorize screen you either grant global authorization (any payer you apply to can pull the profile) or check plans individually. If a payer you applied to isn't authorized, your application stalls with no error message on your side. Global authorization is the safer default for most solo therapists.
Sources
The paneled.ai team · Credentialing specialists. We file and track insurance credentialing applications for behavioral health providers every day — these guides come from what we see go wrong (and right) in real applications.