CAQH ProView is a shared credentialing database. A provider maintains one profile, and participating payers pull from it rather than each collecting the same documents separately.
It works well, and it introduces a single point of failure that most practices do not monitor.
Why payers rely on it
When a commercial payer processes a credentialing application, a large part of what they verify comes from CAQH rather than from your submission. If the profile is incomplete, out of date, or not attested, the payer cannot complete verification — and the application does not fail, it simply stops.
That is the part that catches people out. A stalled application generates no notification. It sits.
The 120-day rule
A CAQH profile must be re-attested every 120 days. Attestation is the provider confirming that the information in the profile is current and accurate. Nothing has to change; the confirmation itself is the requirement.
Roughly every four months, therefore, every credentialed provider in the practice needs to attest. Miss it and the profile is marked as not currently attested.
What actually happens when it lapses
In-flight applications stall. Every payer currently verifying that provider stops, simultaneously.
Re-credentialing stalls. Payers re-credential on a cycle, typically every three years, and they pull from CAQH to do it. A lapsed profile during a re-credentialing cycle can lead to termination from the network.
Directory listings can drop. Payers use CAQH data to populate provider directories. A provider who disappears from a directory loses referrals from patients who search it, and nobody in the practice will notice for months.
Documents expire quietly. CAQH stores expirable documents — licence, DEA, malpractice. An expired document in the profile creates the same stall as a lapsed attestation, even if the real-world document was renewed.
Why it gets missed
CAQH sends reminders to the email on the profile. That address is frequently a departed employee, a personal address the provider does not check, or a shared inbox nobody owns.
The reminders are also routine, which means they read like noise. The consequence only becomes visible months later, at which point it presents as an unexplained credentialing delay rather than as a missed email.
What a working process looks like
- Own the profile. One person, named, is responsible for CAQH across the practice — not each provider individually.
- Track attestation dates centrally. A calendar with every provider's next attestation date, alerted at least two weeks ahead.
- Track document expiries alongside them. Licence, DEA, malpractice and board certification, with alerts 60 days out so the renewed document reaches the profile before the old one expires.
- Use a monitored email address. A shared, monitored inbox rather than an individual's.
- Check the profile before every re-credentialing cycle. Confirm it is complete and attested before the payer looks at it, not after they tell you it was not.
The wider point
CAQH is one of several dates that quietly invalidate revenue: attestation every 120 days, Medicare revalidation on a five-year cycle, commercial re-credentialing roughly every three years, plus every expirable document.
None of them are difficult. All of them are invisible until they have already cost something. Deadline tracking is the whole job.