MPRIME, Week One: What Providers Actually Got Stuck On
For practice owners, office managers, billing leads and credentialing staff at any Maryland behavioral health program that bills Medicaid.
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Last week we emailed Maryland behavioral health providers about the MPRIME launch. We wrote about deadlines: December 31 for backdated enrollment, December 1 for suspended providers. The replies were not about deadlines.
They were about the first screen. "Can you please explain what I as a provider should have done with MPRIME?" "Do you work with ePREP or MPRIME?"
That tells us something useful. For a lot of practices, October 13 did not arrive as a project with steps. It arrived as a login that stopped working. So this is the step by step, in order, using MDH's own user guide.
First, what changed
MPRIME (the Maryland Provider Registration and Information Management Enterprise) replaced ePREP on October 13, 2026. You reach it at www.mprime.health.maryland.gov.
Your enrollment records moved over. Your login did not. Every person who needs access, including whoever used to manage your ePREP account, creates a new MPRIME user account and then connects that account to the practice's existing Medicaid record. Until someone at your practice does that, nobody at your practice can see or update your enrollment, file a revalidation, or submit an application.
That is the whole problem in one sentence: the record is there, but it has no owner yet.
Step 1: create a user account
On the MPRIME sign in page, choose Create Account and fill in the required fields. You need a mobile number that can receive text messages; MPRIME sends a one time passcode to it to verify the account. After you verify, you are sent back to the sign in screen to log in with the email and password you just created.
Two practical points. Use a work email that will outlive the person, or at least one the practice controls. And decide before you start who the account belongs to; the account is a person, not the practice.
Step 2: connect the account to your practice
After you sign in, MPRIME asks for the provider you want to associate with. Enter the provider's information. If you are associating with an individual billing provider, MDH's guide says to enter the tax identifier used to submit claims, whether that is an EIN or an SSN.
What happens next depends on whether the provider is already enrolled:
- Already enrolled in Maryland Medicaid. The service address and provider type on file under the NPI fill in automatically. This is the normal case for an existing practice, and the auto fill is a good check that you have the right record.
- Not yet enrolled. You enter the service address and choose the provider type, then accept administrator responsibility for the new provider account. This is where a new enrollment starts.
Step 3: take administrator rights (this is where people stop)
For an enrolled provider, MPRIME asks whether you want to accept administrator responsibilities. To say yes, you have to prove you are entitled to the record by entering two more pieces of information:
- For a group or facility: the practice's Medicaid Provider ID (the MA number) and the zip code of the pay-to address.
- For an individual provider: the provider's date of birth and Social Security number.
If you choose no, you get read only access. That is useful for a biller who needs to see the record but should not change it, and it is a trap for the person who actually needs to file things.
If the MA number and pay-to zip do not verify, check two things before calling: that you are entering the group's MA number rather than a rendering provider's, and that the zip matches the pay-to address Medicaid has on file, which may be older than your current one. MDH's guide says to call the MPRIME call center at 1-844-463-7768 if you still have trouble verifying.
Step 4: add your other records
Most practices have more than one record: a group, sometimes a second program or location, sometimes individual providers who bill under their own number. Once your account is associated with one provider, you add the others from the main Provider Selection page with Add New Provider in the top right corner. Each one runs through the same association and administrator check.
Then the three dates
None of the steps above are the deadline. They are what has to happen before you can meet the deadlines, which are unchanged:
- December 31, 2026. A provider who was caught in the application hold and files a complete, processable MPRIME application by this date gets an effective date backdated to the later of the hold start for their risk tier (July 1 or August 1) or their license issue date (PT 94-26). Incomplete applications do not qualify, so file early enough to absorb one rejection.
- December 1, 2026. Providers whose suspension was deferred during the transition terminate on this date unless the update that resolves the suspension is filed first.
- November 15, 2026. Out of state individually licensed providers whose licenses expired between August 1 and November 15 need updated license information in MPRIME by this date, or the account suspends.
Also check every revalidation due through the end of the year. Revalidations are now filed in MPRIME, and you should not wait for a notice.
One more item from MDH's October 8 transmittal, as summarized in Carelon's October 13 alert: providers are required to upload licensure and certification in MPRIME. If your licenses and certifications live in a shared drive or a filing cabinet, gather them now so the upload is a ten minute job rather than a search.
Who to call
- MPRIME call center: 1-844-463-7768 (for account and verification problems)
- Provider enrollment questions: mdh.providerenrollment@maryland.gov
- MPRIME transition questions: mdh.mprimegolive@maryland.gov
- Training and guides: the MPRIME Training Center, linked from MDH's MPRIME page, has the workflows, video tutorials and the user guide we used for this article.
To answer the question we were asked
"Do you work with ePREP or MPRIME?" Mallow is an electronic health record, not a credentialing service, so we do not file enrollments for practices. But we run a Maryland behavioral health practice ourselves and went through the same switch, so if something in MPRIME is not behaving the way this guide says it should, email us and we will tell you what we have seen.