Posted on February 5, 2026
Access to mental health care continues to be an issue for Coloradans.
Thirteen percent of Coloradans continue to have problems with accessing mental health care and individuals who are uninsured or have Medicaid report even higher rates of inaccessible care. Typical conversations around the cost of therapy and physical accessibility overshadow a larger conversation on access — administrative burdens associated with becoming a credentialed provider on insurance panels.
The introduction of House Bill 26-1002 attempts to address the administrative burdens associated with becoming a covered provider by making the process for credentialing smoother. It requires insurance companies and managed care organizations to check in with providers that have not submitted a recent claim about their continued interest in being covered. Providers already credentialed with an insurance would not need to submit an application to be re-credentialed. It also addresses the drawn-out processes of becoming an in-network Medicaid provider.
Yet, questions still remain.
How are insurance companies going to be held accountable to these processing standards to ensure individuals feel supported to remain an in-network provider? We have seen issues with accountability when it comes to enforcing mental health parity for insurance coverage. In fact, Colorado had to pass a law outlining further standards for insurance companies to follow regulations despite existing federal laws attempting to hold companies accountable.
Research also shows that complex processes to become contracted with an insurance company prevents providers from even initiating the process. HB-1002 does not address the complexities of initially applying to be a contracted provider. Addressing barriers for only a subset of providers already contracted is only a drop in the bucket. Only a little over 60% of Colorado psychotherapists accept any type of insurance (one of the lowest rates in the country). We need to lower the barriers to entry to get more providers to accept insurance.
We also need to address the elephant in the room. Medicaid reimbursement rate cuts are happening across the country, with Colorado joining the movement by proposing rate cuts to offset the federal deficit due to the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. With Medicaid reimbursement rates being rolled back, fewer providers will want to contract with Medicaid, exacerbating difficulties with accessing care. Reducing a few administrative burdens will not confront the biggest concern for providers seeking to take insurance – financial sustainability.
As someone who worked in community mental health care and now knows former colleagues in private practice, I hear about the financial burden placed on providers in private practice that choose to accept insurance rather than being self-pay only. We are villainizing therapists who don’t take insurance rather than asking how systems are preventing therapists from becoming credentialed, knowing they want to help as many people as possible.
HB-1002 is a start to having the conversation around administrative burdens that mental health providers face when they are considering whether to continue accepting insurance for services. However, it falls short in the numerous other areas that may hold greater weight in whether a provider would consider becoming credentialed.
If Colorado really wants to make a dent in the rate of individuals accessing care, it should ask itself how to make the bar to credentialing lower and less complex for providers while valuing the services they provide with appropriate compensation.
Sasha Zabelski is a former community-based mental health crisis therapist and a current Ph.D. student in public health sciences at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. This commentary is republished from Colorado Newsline under a Creative Commons license.
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