How to leave Headway or Grow Therapy and go independent

Leaving Headway or Grow Therapy means terminating your provider agreement, credentialing with payers under your own tax ID, and moving eligible clients to your own practice. Plan 60 to 90 days. The part that catches most therapists out is credentialing, because your enrollment does not travel with you.

The short version

Your insurance enrollment through these platforms sits under their group contracts, so it does not transfer when you leave. Both platforms distinguish between clients you brought with you and clients who found you through the platform, and that distinction decides who can come with you. Re-credentialing under your own tax ID commonly takes 90 to 180 days, which is longer than most exit timelines. Build the independent practice first, then give notice; reversing that order creates a revenue gap. And read your signed agreement: help center articles describe the general policy, not your contract.

What actually has to happen

Going independent is four separate jobs that people tend to treat as one: ending a contract, moving clients, getting credentialed, and standing up a practice. Only the first is quick. Sequencing them properly is the whole task.

Step 1: Read your signed provider agreement first

Start with the agreement you signed, not the help center. Platform help articles describe current general policy, and your agreement governs your particular situation, including notice periods, client transition rules, records, and anything that survives termination.

Look specifically for the termination process and notice period, any non-solicitation or client transition language, what happens to outstanding claims after your access ends, and your record retention and release obligations.

Headway processes provider deactivations on a monthly cycle and asks providers to confirm outstanding sessions before submitting a termination request, so timing your request badly can strand unpaid sessions (Headway's help center, as of September 2026).

Step 2: Work out which clients can come with you

Both platforms draw a line between clients you brought to the platform and clients who found you through it. Headway's current provider guidance treats clients you brought as yours, while clients who came through Headway's search are expected to stay with Headway.

Build a caseload spreadsheet before you do anything else, with a row per client and columns for how they found you, their payer, whether they can transition, and the action required. Sending one identical announcement to your whole caseload is the single most common mistake, and depending on your agreement it can breach it.

Step 3: Start credentialing under your own tax ID early

Your enrollment does not transfer. Grow Therapy's credentialing guidance states plainly that enrollment status does not carry outside Grow, because providers are enrolled under Grow's group contracts with insurers. Headway works the same way. If you see Aetna, Cigna, or UnitedHealthcare clients through the platform, you need your own contracts with those payers to keep seeing them independently.

Re-credentialing commonly runs 90 to 180 days per payer. That is longer than most exit timelines, which is why credentialing has to start while you are still on the platform and still earning.

You will need an individual NPI, a Type 2 NPI if you are forming an entity, an EIN, malpractice coverage, a current CAQH profile, and your license documentation. If you plan to bill Medicare, that is a separate enrollment through PECOS rather than a panel application.

If you are weighing whether to take insurance independently at all, our guide to billing insurance as a private practice therapist walks through what the claims workflow actually involves day to day.

Step 4: Build the practice while you are still earning

Stand up the infrastructure before you give notice. At minimum: business entity and EIN, bank account, EHR, HIPAA compliant telehealth, scheduling, payment processing, intake and consent documents, a Notice of Privacy Practices, and a Good Faith Estimate process.

The Good Faith Estimate is a federal requirement rather than an optional nicety. Under the No Surprises Act, uninsured and self pay clients are generally entitled to a written estimate when care is scheduled at least three business days in advance, or when they ask for one. See the CMS guidance on good faith estimates.

Choosing the EHR is where people lose the most time, partly because the platform you are leaving handled notes, billing, and scheduling in one place and replacing that with three tools recreates the admin you left to escape. If you want a shortlist rather than a research project, see the best EHR for private practice in 2026, or look at what Upheal offers individual providers, which keeps notes, scheduling, and insurance billing in one system so a solo practice is not stitching together a stack.

Insurance billing in Upheal is priced per use rather than as a monthly add-on: $0.30 per claim submission and $0.15 per eligibility check, as listed on Upheal's pricing page in September 2026. For a solo practice still building its caseload, that means billing costs scale with the sessions you actually bill.

If you are still on the fence about the move itself, starting free costs nothing while you decide. Start free, no credit card required.

Step 5: Give notice and close out claims

Submit the termination request only once your own systems work and credentialing is underway. Keep seeing platform clients through the notice period, confirm every outstanding session before your access ends, and export what you are entitled to keep while you still have access.

Expect a tail. Claims submitted in your final weeks can take another 30 to 60 days to resolve, and resolving them is harder without platform access.

What usually goes wrong

Giving notice before credentialing starts. This is the expensive one. If notice is 30 days and credentialing is 120, you have created a three month gap with no in-network billing. Start credentialing first.

Assuming the client list is yours. It depends on how each client found you, and your agreement decides it, not your sense of the therapeutic relationship.

Underestimating the records job. Exporting charts in a usable form takes longer than expected, and some formats are painful to import elsewhere. Do it early, while you still have access.

Forgetting the Good Faith Estimate workflow. Straightforward to set up in advance, awkward to retrofit once you are seeing self pay clients.

Treating the platform's help center as your contract. Policies change and your signed agreement is what binds you.

How long it takes and what it costs

Most transitions run 60 to 90 days of preparation, with credentialing extending past the exit date by several months. A realistic plan assumes reduced income for one to three months unless you can bridge with self pay clients or stay on the platform while credentialing completes.

One time costs typically include entity formation, malpractice coverage, and EHR setup. The recurring cost is your practice software and any billing support. Against that, you keep the percentage the platform was taking, which is usually the whole point of leaving.

Is going independent actually worth it?

For most therapists with an established caseload, yes. For a new clinician still filling a schedule, often not. The platforms take a meaningful share of each session, but they supply referrals, credentialing, and billing. Replacing that means either paying for tools or doing the work yourself.

If your caseload is full and mostly people who found you rather than the platform, the math favors leaving. If you rely on the platform for referrals, leaving removes your client pipeline and adds admin at the same time. Some therapists run a hybrid for a year, building independent panels while keeping platform clients, and that is a reasonable answer rather than a failure of nerve.

Frequently asked questions

Does my insurance credentialing transfer when I leave Headway or Grow Therapy?

No. Your enrollment sits under the platform's group contracts with payers, so you must credential independently under your own tax ID. Grow Therapy's credentialing guidance states this directly, and Headway operates on the same model. Plan 90 to 180 days per payer and start before you give notice.

Can I take my clients with me when I leave?

It depends on how each client found you, and your signed agreement governs it. Both platforms distinguish clients you brought from clients who found you through their search. Review your agreement's non-solicitation and client transition language before contacting anyone.

How long does it take to leave Headway or Grow Therapy?

Most therapists need 60 to 90 days of preparation, plus 90 to 180 days for credentialing that continues after they exit. The exit itself is fast. The infrastructure around it is not, and credentialing is the binding constraint.

Do I need an EHR to go independent?

Yes, if you are keeping clinical records and billing insurance, which nearly all independent therapists are. The platform handled notes, scheduling, and claims for you. Going independent means owning those workflows, either in one system or several.

What happens to claims I submitted before I left?

They generally continue processing, but chasing them is harder once your platform access ends. Confirm every outstanding session before submitting your termination request, and keep your own record of what is pending.

Where this leaves you

Going independent is an operations project with a clinical deadline attached. The order matters more than the speed: read the agreement, map the caseload, start credentialing, build the practice, then give notice. Therapists who reverse those last two steps are the ones who end up with a gap in income.

If part of what you are leaving behind is a platform that handled your admin, the practical question is what replaces it without recreating the paperwork you left. Try Upheal free and see how much of it the EHR can carry.

Last updated September 2026.