Enrolling a New Physical Location With Payers

Alpaca runs payer location-enrollment for its practices. This article explains what’s happening in the background and what it means for your opening timeline — not a checklist you execute yourself. For the general credentialing process, see “Credentialing: Status, Timeline, What to Expect.”

Why this takes real time

Being credentialed for telehealth doesn’t automatically cover a new physical address. Each payer has to add the new location to your enrollment, and for Medicaid that usually includes a site visit — an inspection of the new address that telehealth enrollment never required.

What that means for you

• You can’t bill a payer for in-person sessions until that payer has the new address on file — even though you’re fully in-network everywhere else for telehealth.

• The Medicaid site visit is the likely long pole. It’s scheduled by the state, so it doesn’t speed up just because you’re already established.

• Plan your opening and cash flow around the gap. You can see clients at the new site before enrollment clears — you just can’t bill for it yet.

WARNING: Don’t lock in a grand-opening date or start billing POS 11 claims from the new address until Alpaca confirms the enrollment is active.

What to do

Step 1. Flag your signed lease to Alpaca as soon as you have it — a firm address is the trigger to start location-adds and the Medicaid site visit in parallel.

Step 2. Expect roughly a couple of months per commercial payer once there’s a firm address.

Questions? Reach out to credentialing@alpacahealth.io.