> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://www.practiceownersguide.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Credentialing vs. contracting

> Two different processes people constantly conflate: one verifies you, the other pays you.

"I'm credentialed with Aetna" usually means one of two very different things,
and the difference decides whether your claims pay in-network.

|                     | Credentialing                                       | Contracting                               |
| ------------------- | --------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------- |
| Question it answers | Is this provider who they claim to be?              | What will we pay this practice?           |
| Output              | Committee approval                                  | A participation agreement + fee schedule  |
| Belongs to          | The clinician (travels with you)                    | The entity/TIN (stays with the practice)  |
| Where it happens    | [CAQH](/guides/caqh-setup), verification, committee | Negotiation with the payer's network team |

You need **both** to be in-network: a credentialed provider linked to a
contracted TIN. The failure modes are the gaps between them: credentialed but
no contract (paid out-of-network or not at all), contracted entity but a new
associate not yet credentialed under it (their claims deny while colleagues'
pay), or a new TIN after an
[entity change](/guides/become-an-mso) that silently orphans the old
contract.

The fix is always the same question to the payer: "Is this **provider**
credentialed, and is this **TIN** contracted, and are they linked?" Full
process: [Get credentialed](/guides/get-credentialed) and
[Payer contracting](/guides/payer-contracting).

## Related

* [Get credentialed](/guides/get-credentialed)
* [Payer contracting and fee schedules](/guides/payer-contracting)
* [In-network vs. out-of-network economics](/concepts/network-economics)
* [CAQH from zero](/guides/caqh-setup)