Marlien · Payer guide
Georgia DBHDD (community behavioural health certification)
Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD) — administered by the Georgia Collaborative ASO (Carelon)
- GA
- Georgia community behavioural health — Medicaid (Tier 2 Community Medicaid Provider)
Where you file
- How you apply
- The Georgia Collaborative (Carelon) ASO on behalf of DBHDD — this is a state track, not a payer portal
- The path
- Phase 1: attend a New Provider Enrollment Forum → submit a BH Agency Letter of Intent inside an open enrollment period → LOI approved → invitation to apply. Phase 2: the BH Agency Application for New Providers → a site visit if the Regional Field Office requires one → the DCH application online in GAMMIS → the approval email and New Provider Orientation.
- What access you need
- GAEnrollment@carelon.com (document submission only) · GACollaborative@carelon.com (credentialing and enrollment questions) · GACollaborativePR@carelon.com (provider relations, authorizations, training) · DBHDD Division of Behavioral Health (404) 657-2252
- Who verifies
- none — this is a state certification, not a payer credentialing decision
- Worth knowing
- Georgia Medicaid behavioural health is certified by the state and contracted by the health plans. DBHDD approval makes a provider eligible to serve Georgia Medicaid behavioural members. It does NOT put the provider on any health plan's network. The plan contracts — CareSource, Amerigroup, Peach State — are separate, with separate effective dates and a separate written date.
Lines of business
Each line is its own application, with its own checklist, its own effective date and its own contract. Filing one does not file the others. What follows is what this payer asks for, line by line.
Georgia Medicaid behavioural health — Tier 2 (Community Medicaid Provider)
Tier 2 serves Medicaid members only. Tier 1 (CCP) is the safety net — the community service boards, funded by the state and Medicaid. Tier 3 is the specialty network. An individual practitioner cannot enrol on this track: DBHDD's provider manual states the practitioner must be employed by a DBHDD-enrolled Tier I or Tier II agency. If you are a solo provider, the certification belongs to the agency you work for — check their tier before you file anything.
What to watch for
The things that quietly stop a file, whichever line of business you are filing.
- Must be trueThe employing agency is a DBHDD-enrolled Tier 1 or Tier 2 agency — a practitioner cannot enrol aloneDBHDD's provider manual, Part II: the practitioner must be employed by a DBHDD enrolled Tier I or Tier II agency. If you are solo, this certification is your employer's, not yours.
What the payer publishes about time
- Completeness review
- Phase 1 is a gate, not a form: the forum and an open enrollment period come first. Nothing is accepted outside an open enrollment period.
- Decision
- DBHDD reviews the application; the Regional Field Office conducts a site visit if one is required; then the DCH application is completed online. Approval arrives by email and is followed by New Provider Orientation.
- Committee
- none — this track is a staff review, not a Credentialing Committee
- Contract
- no health-plan contract happens on this track. The plan contracts are separate, and they are what produce a billing relationship.
- What the numbers mean
- No published review-day count was found on the pages I could verify, so none is quoted. Chase Provider Relations rather than assume a timeline.
Deadlines that start a clock
After a DCH denial you must wait one year before you can reapply365 calendar days
counted from the payer's decision
Recredentialing
- Cycle
- annual reporting cycle — confirm the re-credentialing interval
- What it hangs on
- DBHDD community provider manual, Part II — the manual is reissued quarterly through the state fiscal year
- Worth knowing
- Providers report against annual performance indicators and the manual is updated quarterly. The exact re-credentialing interval for this track is not stated on the pages I could verify — confirm it with Provider Relations before promising a cycle to a client.
The effective date
Approval is not the date. These are the markers that make a date real.
- How it is established
- The DCH approval of the DBHDD application, then New Provider Orientation, then a Medicaid provider number that is actually being used. DBHDD approval is a certification, not a contract.
- What proves it
- The DBHDD approval email naming the agency as a BH provider, the New Provider Orientation, and an active Georgia Medicaid provider number.
- Contract date
- This is not the same as the contract effective date. Track both.
- Worth knowing
- Do not record an effective date from the LOI approval or from the application sitting in review. The marker is the approval email plus a usable provider number — and a provider number that goes unused for twelve months terminates and cannot be reactivated. You reapply.
What we checked, and what we did not
The five phases, the open-enrollment-period rule, the one-year rule after a DCH denial, the agency accreditation-or-certification requirement, the practitioner-employment rule, the practitioner level table, the telemental health continuing-education hours, the Attachment A service forms and the ASO contact addresses confirmed against DBHDD's own Become a Provider page, the Community Behavioral Health Provider Manual, the behavioural health provider welcome packet, the DBHDD provider FAQs and the Georgia Collaborative forms list on 2026-11-04. No published review-day count and no re-credentialing interval were found on those pages, so neither is quoted.
The payer's own pages
Where to file
- New Provider Enrollment Forum — register (Phase 1, step 1)Georgia Collaborative › Providers › EnrollmentYou must register and attend a forum presented by the Georgia Collaborative ASO before anything else can be filed. The forum comes before the Letter of Intent.
- BH Letter of Intent, BH Agency Application and the Attachment A service formsGeorgia Collaborative › Providers › FormsThe LOI and the BH Agency Application for New Providers, plus an Attachment A for each service you intend to bill — Core Services, Assertive Community Treatment, Community Support Team, AD Peer Support, Housing Support, Ambulatory Substance Abuse Detoxification. A service you did not apply for is not billable.
- Georgia Medicaid application (DCH) — GAMMIS (Phase 2, last step)Georgia Medicaid Management Information SystemYou are notified to complete the online DCH application only after the DBHDD application and any site visit are approved. A DCH denial here costs a full year.
Information and forms
- Georgia DBHDD — Become a Provider (the path, in phases)The authoritative statement of the five phases, the open-enrollment-period rule and the one-year rule after a DCH denial.
- DBHDD — Community provider manualsThe Community Behavioral Health Provider Manual, updated quarterly through the state fiscal year. It carries the rule that a practitioner must be employed by a DBHDD-enrolled Tier I or Tier II agency, and the practitioner-level table by service.
- DBHDD — Behavioural health provider welcome packet (PDF)The three tiers explained, the accreditation-or-certification rule for agencies, the twelve-month provider-number rule and the ASO contact addresses.
- DBHDD — the three provider tiersTier 1 CCP is the safety net (the community service boards). Tier 2 CMP serves Medicaid members. Tier 3 is the specialty network.
- Policy 01-230 — Community Medicaid Provider (CMP) Standards for Georgia's Tier 2 behavioural health servicesThe standards a Tier 2 provider is measured against.
- DBHDD — telemedicine and telephonic behavioural health coverage guidanceTelemedicine and telephone service delivery, consent, documentation and modifier rules.
- DBHDD — provider FAQs (the telemental health training rule)DBHDD's own statement of the Georgia Composite Board rule: six continuing education hours before a licensee provides telemental health, nine before a supervisor provides supervision by telemental health, and the Board's decision that the hours may be completed online.
- DBHDD — licensure information
Who to contact
- Georgia Collaborative ASO — document submissionApplications, change-of-information forms, Medicaid reactivation and deactivation forms, licences, insurance, staff update formsGAEnrollment@carelon.comDOCUMENTS ONLY. Do not send anything to the questions inbox — that is how applications go missing.
- Georgia Collaborative — credentialing and enrollment questionsLetter of Intent, new applications, existing provider applicationsGACollaborative@carelon.comDocuments are NOT accepted at this address. Include the tracking number in the subject line.
- Georgia Collaborative — Provider RelationsAuthorizations, training, denied authorization spreadsheetsGACollaborativePR@carelon.com
- DBHDD Division of Behavioral HealthGeneral division line and policy questions(404) 657-2252200 Piedmont Avenue SE, West Tower, 14th Floor, Atlanta, GA 30334. Monday to Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
- DBHDD PIMS+ supportPolicy, procedure and expectation questionssupport@dbhddpims.zendesk.com