How to Create a Medi-Cal PAVE Account

Rather than setting up Medi-Cal enrollment yourself, Bomi can handle Medi-Cal enrollment and billing for you — so you can get back to seeing clients sooner.

If you're a California therapist getting started with Medi-Cal, everything begins in one place: PAVE, the state's online provider enrollment portal. Before you can enroll, submit an application, or add a biller to help, you need a PAVE account. This guide walks you through creating one, what to have ready, and how little you actually have to do yourself.

What Is PAVE?

PAVE (Provider Application and Validation for Enrollment) is the Department of Health Care Services' online portal for Medi-Cal fee-for-service enrollment: new applications, adding clinicians to a group, address changes, and revalidations. If you want to see Medi-Cal patients and bill for them, a PAVE account is the front door. You can reach it at pave.dhcs.ca.gov.

The Two Profiles You'll Set Up

PAVE has two kinds of profile, and understanding the difference makes everything else click:

• Your User Profile is your personal login. Each person who touches PAVE — you, your office staff, your biller — has their own. You do not need an NPI to create one.

• Your Business Profile is your practice's enrollment home, tied to your tax ID and holding your NPIs, applications, and accounts. It can be shared with several users, and whoever creates it automatically becomes its Administrator. Creating a Business Profile does require a valid NPI.

Creating your account means setting up both: first your User Profile (the login), then your Business Profile (the practice).

Before You Start: What to Have Ready

• Your NPI. Your individual NPI (Type 1), plus your organization NPI (Type 2) if your practice is incorporated. You need a valid NPI to create the Business Profile.

• Your practice tax details. Your SSN or EIN, and your legal business name and address as they appear on file.

• A working email address you can access to verify your login.

• Identity details. When your Business Profile claims your NPI, PAVE verifies your identity — either with your Medi-Cal PIN (if you already have one) or by asking a few identity-proofing questions. A brand-new provider will not have a PIN yet, so expect the questions instead.

How to Create Your PAVE Account

• Register your User Profile. Go to pave.dhcs.ca.gov and register as a new user with your name and email. This creates your personal login. No NPI is needed at this step.

• Verify your email and sign in. Confirm your address from the email PAVE sends, then log in to the portal.

• Create your Business Profile. Start a new Business Profile for your practice and enter your NPI and tax details. PAVE will verify your identity (Medi-Cal PIN or identity-proofing questions). When you create it, you become the Administrator of your practice profile.

• You're ready to enroll. With both profiles set up, you (or your biller) can start the actual Medi-Cal enrollment application. You can save and resume it at any time, so it does not have to be done in one sitting.

The Easier Path: Let Your Biller Do the Work

Here's the part most providers don't realize: once your account exists, you barely have to touch PAVE again. You can invite your biller or credentialing service into your Business Profile, and they can build your entire enrollment application, upload documents, and handle everything DHCS sends back. The one thing that always stays with you is signing — California requires the provider to e-sign the application under their own login, so your biller prepares it and PAVE simply notifies you when it's ready for your signature.

Once your account is set up, the next step is to add your biller. Here is exactly how to do it: How to Give Your Biller Access to Your Medi-Cal PAVE Account.

If Bomi is your biller, you can even skip most of this: we can create the Business Profile and build the application for you, then invite you to create a login and e-sign. Either way, your part shrinks to a few clicks and a signature.

Why It Matters

Your PAVE enrollment is the foundation for far more than fee-for-service billing. California's Medi-Cal managed care plans — IEHP, Molina, Health Net, L.A. Care, and the rest — are required to verify your state enrollment before you can join their networks. Getting your PAVE account and application moving early is what keeps every downstream plan application on track.

Create the account, invite your biller, and let them carry it from there. If you would rather hand off the whole thing — PAVE, the managed care plans, and the claims — that is exactly what Bomi does for therapy practices.