PHOENIX (AZFamily) — A big shakeup is on the way for Arizona mental health professionals and one of the state’s largest insurance companies.
Therapists say starting on New Year’s Day, new supervision requirements could worsen the growing mental health care shortage.
If providers can’t keep up with the new rules, they won’t be able to accept Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona insurance, forcing patients to either pay out of pocket or find a new therapist.
“This will do nothing but limit services and even abruptly stop services,” said Dr. Alex Levitan, the chief clinical director of Levitan & Associates Psychological Services.
To Levitan, the updated guidelines are forced micromanagement. He feels blindsided.
“Ridiculous demands,” said Levitan. “It’s supposed to be a supervisory rather than this hand-holding, me taking charge kind of system.”
Supervising providers will now have to handle patient intake and set up a treatment plan before transitioning care to an associate.
“They have completed all their schooling. They have passed their licensing requirements. They just need to acquire a certain amount of hours under supervision,” he said. “So this isn’t like a student who this is, you know, their first case and they’re nervous. Like these are actually independently capable professionals.”
The new guidelines also require that the supervisor be readily available to step in in real-time, in person or virtually, throughout all future appointments.
“So, I don’t have to be in the room with them, but I kind of have to be, I guess, next door with like a glass to the wall, like listening in. And if there’s an emergency, I’m at the drop of a hat ready to run in,” said Levitan.
He said this will complicate telehealth offerings and lead to job losses in a field experiencing high demand, amid a severe staffing shortage.
“I can tell you right now, our wait list for evaluations is about three months out, simply because there are not enough providers to do the work,” said Levitan.
The impact is widespread. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Arizona provides insurance to more than 2 million customers.
A company spokesperson released this statement:
“Our updated guidelines are designed to improve care, prevent fraud, and keep patients safe. They apply across all services offered to our members. For new patients after January 1, 2026, we want to make sure that a qualified provider (eligible to be credentialed with AZ Blue) starts the patient relationship, completes the first visit, and sets the treatment plan before transitioning the patient to an associate or technician to carry out the treatment plan. The supervising provider must then stay readily available (physically or via real-time audio/visual) to step in and provide guidance at any point in the treatment. We update our Provider Operating Guide annually and communicate those changes on an annual basis as well. This change, along with other updates to the Guide, were shared by email in November with a reminder email in December.”
Several Valley therapists told Arizona’s Family they never received notice.
“We pretty much have to either work for free or pretty much do almost like case management, even though that’s not our profession, to help find new sources of help for these individuals,” said Levitan.
In addition to being the Chief Clinical Director of his own practice in Phoenix, Levitan supervises clinicians for other offices and agencies, and he said he won’t be able to do that anymore because he can’t be available to them and his own team the way Blue Cross Blue Shield will soon require.
See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? Please click here to report it.
Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send it to us here with a brief description.
Copyright 2025 KTVK/KPHO. All rights reserved.