Credentialing in District Of Columbia

"Effective February 2024, DHCF, in partnership with DBH, paused the planning for the April 1, 2024, carve-in of behavioral health services into managed care." Specialty BH (MHRS mental-health rehab + SUD services) remains carved OUT of the managed-care plans, delivered by DBH-certified providers and paid fee-for-service. The DC specialty-BH gate is DBH certification plus DC Medicaid enrollment, not the three MCP BH networks.

DHCF, Behavioral Health Integration · checked Jul 2026

DC Medicaid is run by the Department of Health Care Finance (DHCF); the current web portal is medicaid.dc.gov, operated by Gainwell, and provider enrollment runs through the Provider Data Management System (PDMS) at dcpdms.com. Warning from the portal itself: "The Conduent physical mailboxes are no longer active, and sending correspondence to an inactive mailing address will cause significant delays", the old dc-medicaid.com host no longer resolves.

DC Medicaid web portal (medicaid.dc.gov) · checked Jul 2026

DHCF, verbatim: "The managed care plans through DC Healthy Families are: a. AmeriHealth Caritas DC b. MedStar Family Choice DC c. Wellpoint DC." CareFirst BCBS Community Health Plan DC (CHPDC, ex-Trusted) is NOT in the current lineup. It lost the 2022-2023 re-procurement to Amerigroup DC, which was renamed Wellpoint DC; stale directories still list CHPDC.

DHCF, DC Healthy Families · checked Jul 2026

Graduate-licensed associates (LGPC, LGSW) render inside DBH-certified MHRS agencies. The certified agency is the enrolled/billing entity, and humans render as "qualified practitioners and credentialed staff." Per 22-A DCMR § 3416.2, "A qualified practitioner shall only render those MHRS… consistent with the scope of the qualified practitioner's license," and the chapter's practitioner-type list names "Licensed Graduate Professional Counselors ('LGPC'), Licensed Graduate Social Worker ('LGSW')" among licensed types. Diagnostic Assessments, Clinical Director, and crisis-access roles require an "independently licensed" qualified practitioner; no private-practice/own-enrollment lane for LGPC/LGSW was located.

22-A DCMR Chapter 34, MHRS Provider Certification Standards (DBH) · checked Jul 2026

The District of Columbia IS a Counseling Compact member jurisdiction (on the counselingcompact.gov jurisdictions list) but not issuing privileges as of July 2026.

Counseling Compact, Compact Jurisdictions list · checked Jul 2026

DBH's amended moratorium (11/14/2025) states DBH will "not accept certification application for any other type of service (including those services under Title 22-A DCMR Chapters 25, 30, 34, 35, 37, 38, 39, 65, and 80)" beyond a short list (ASAM 3.1/3.3/3.5/3.7-WM residential plus one crisis-clinic conversion). New MHRS provider certification is CLOSED as of that notice. Verify the current moratorium notice before quoting any DC specialty-BH go-live.

DBH, Notice of Amended Moratorium on Accepting Certification Applications (11/14/2025) · checked Jul 2026