If you are a mental health professional looking to work with health insurance carriers then you should familiarize yourself with BHOs, or Behavorial Health Organizations.  The primary purpose of most health insurance policies is to handle those ailments caused by physical problems and not mental or psychologically based problems.  Therefore, when someone is needing assistance with psychologically based problems, there is a wealth of information and details that must be kept and administered too.  Because of the differentiation, Behavorial Health Organizations have evolved.  They are responsible for assisting insurance carriers with those needs related specifically to mental health issues, or psychologically based concerns.  With the complexity of working with mental health disorders, there are numerous BHOs that are apart of the complete system.  Many of your major insurance carriers such as Aetna and Cigna, have their own separate BHO that deals only with mental health benefits.  Yet that still does not mean that the mental health benefits for Cigna patients are all exclusive to Cigna Behavorial Health only (CBH), they may also contract with other BHOs too.  Another robust example is that of Medicare and Medicaid.  Within the state of Colorado, Medicaid sub-contracts with five (5) different BHOs to cover all of the counties with the state.  You will find the same type of dispersement for Medicare and Medicaid in other states too.  While the 'system' seems complex and overwhelming, once you began to learn the different BHOs and their own specific rules, claims processing becomes a lot easier.  An important detail to remember is although you may be listed as an in-network provider with a major health insurance carrier, that DOES NOT mean you are in-network provider with the BHO.  You will have to go through similar credentialing steps to join the BHO network in addition to the health insurance carrier network.  Although, you may be a in-network provider with the BHO without being an in-network provider with the health insurance carrier to see insurance patients.  You also want to keep in mind that many substance abuse patients insurance claims are paid by the insurance carriers and not the BHO since their condition is consider physically based and not just psychological although treatment may including counseling.  If you wondered what a BHOs track record may be, see if they are listed with NCQA, the National Committee for Quality Assurance at http://reportcard.ncqa.org/mbho/.  This is also a great site to check out the standing on health insurance carriers too.