What to Consider When Changing Your Urgent Care Center’s Legal Name

Have you considered changing legal name of your urgent care center? If so, it is important to understand the effects that this decision could have on your existing insurance contracts and your credentialed providers.

If you decide to change your legal name the IRS could issue a new Federal Tax Identification Number (TIN) for your business. Your TIN is traditionally one of two nationally recognized identifiers that payors use to identify your practice within their internal systems. Additionally, for legal purposes the TIN and legal name are unique to the contract that you have with a specific payor. By changing these numbers, there are consequences to consider.

• Payors may require new contracts to be issued for your new TIN that reflect your new legal name. In this instance, the standard contracting timeframe (6 months on average) may apply.
• New facility applications may need to be completed for your practice that reflect the new TIN and legal name of your practice. In our experience, facility credentialing takes between 30 and 90 business days on average.
• Additional provider credentialing may be required to link your providers to the new TIN, legal name and agreement within each payor’s system. Timeframes may vary.

Our professional recommendation: First, take careful consideration when initially applying for your legal name and TIN. This information is not easily modified without affecting some critical elements that could potentially impact your cash flow. If your goal is to create a “better” or more “fitting” name for your practice, there is an alternative to changing the legal name. We suggest you consider a “doing business as” or DBA change, if possible.

For more information on how to work through this process, reach out to the Practice Velocity Contracting and Credentialing team by calling 888-357-4209.