Getting referred: directories, colleagues, CCOs, counties

This lesson is for a clinician who wants a steadier flow of appropriate clients than a website alone brings, and who is willing to do the slow work of being known to the people who refer. It covers what a directory profile is for, what I think makes one get the call, building referral relationships with other clinicians on purpose, the two features I built on this site for that work (the Referrals Board and Groups), how Oregon Health Plan referrals route through CCOs, county behavioral health, and professional associations. The video above is the Oregon Health Authority's own explainer on what a CCO is. It is several years old, but the structure it describes still stands per OHA's current CCO page.

What a directory profile is for

A directory does one thing your website cannot: it puts you in front of someone who has never heard of you. The visitor arrives with a filter in mind, a city, an insurance plan, a specialty, and the directory narrows a long list to a short one. Your profile's job is to survive that narrowing and then make contact easy. A profile that leaves the insurance field blank never makes the short list; one that makes the list but buries the phone number loses the call.

What I think makes a profile get the call

This is opinion from running this directory, not a finding I can cite. The profiles I would expect to do well share a few habits.

• Every field filled in, not only the required ones. Filters run on fields, and an empty field is an invisible one.
• A real, current photo of your face. Not a logo, not a stock image, not a portrait from a decade ago.
• Specific specialties. "Perinatal mood disorders" and "OCD with ERP" are choices a reader can make. "Anxiety, depression, life transitions" describes almost everyone.
• Current availability. Say whether you have openings and when you last checked. A reader who has been told no three times will pick the profile that says yes, evenings.
• A fast reply. Whatever the channel, answer within a day or two. The reader has usually contacted more than one person.

Referral relationships with other clinicians, on purpose

Most referrals between therapists happen because one clinician knows what another one does. That knowledge does not appear on its own; somebody has to put it there. The way I would do it: pick a handful of clinicians whose work sits next to yours (different populations, modalities, insurance panels), meet each of them once, and leave behind a single page that says exactly what you treat, what you accept, and how to send someone. The referral one-pager attached to this lesson is that page as a fill-in template. Keep a copy of theirs too, so that when you refer out you are not starting from a search box.

Refer out generously and say so on the page. The clinician who reliably sends you clients outside their scope is the clinician you send clients to. Your professional code covers referral obligations, and your board's site is the place to read the version that binds you: the Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists, the Board of Licensed Social Workers, or the Board of Psychology.

The Referrals Board I built

The Referrals Board exists because the most common message between therapists is some version of "I have someone who needs a couples therapist who takes Moda and works virtually, do you know anyone?" It is members only and kept out of search engines. A provider or partner posts a referral in that shape. Other members who fit it express interest. The person who posted reviews the interested providers, approves or removes them, and can email a curated shortlist to their client. The client, not the board, makes the choice.

A posted referral stays open for 30 days. Five days before it expires the board emails the poster a warning, and the poster can renew it for another 30 days or close it early once the client is placed. Anything left alone past the window expires on its own, so the board never fills up with stale requests. If you are a member and you cannot take someone yourself, posting them is the fastest thing you can do for them.

Groups

The Groups directory is public and indexed, unlike the board, because clients search for groups directly. A provider lists a group; a visitor who signs up on the group's page triggers an email to that provider. Groups come in two kinds. Client-facing types are therapy groups, support groups, breathwork, yoga, meditation, grief, addiction and recovery, parenting, teen, men's, women's, LGBTQ+, trauma, and anxiety. Provider-facing types are networking, supervision, consultation, peer support, and training, and those are the ones that matter for this lesson: a consultation group is a referral network that meets on a schedule.

Providers manage their own groups from the dashboard, including marking one full. To keep the listings honest, after 90 days without a confirmation the site emails the provider a nudge asking whether the group is still running. If nobody answers within 14 more days the listing is hidden automatically, and bringing it back takes a click on the confirmation link in that email, or on Confirm Still Active in your dashboard, so a group that quietly ended two years ago does not keep collecting sign-ups.

OHP clients route through CCOs

Oregon Health Plan members get behavioral health through Coordinated Care Organizations, the regional Medicaid entities that coordinate physical, dental, and behavioral care in a service area. As of September 24, 2026 the Oregon Health Authority's CCO page lists 15 of them, each with its own service area and its own provider contact. There is no statewide sign-up for a therapist who wants OHP clients; each CCO runs its own provider contracting, and OHA's page points providers to the individual CCO. So "taking OHP" really means being contracted with the CCO or CCOs that cover the counties you serve, one process per CCO, and the way in is to contact the CCO directly. The payer contacts lesson and the credentialing lesson cover the paperwork side. For referral purposes the practical step is smaller: know which CCOs cover your area, and put the ones you are contracted with on your profile, your one-pager, and your website, in the same words.

County behavioral health, a parallel channel

Counties run their own behavioral health divisions alongside the CCOs, and some publish resources aimed at providers, not only residents. Multnomah County's Behavioral Health Division is the example I checked: its site carries separate provider-resources pages for mental health and for substance use disorder, and its 24/7 line (503-988-4888) is the county's main line for anyone seeking help. I have not verified the equivalent pages for any other county, so I will not describe them; look up your own county's behavioral health division and read what it offers providers.

Professional associations

I cannot point you to a primary source on what any particular association does for referrals, so this section is opinion. The value I see is proximity: a state chapter's listserv, meetings, and member directory put you in a room with the clinicians most likely to refer within your discipline. Whether the dues pay for themselves depends on whether you show up. Joining and never appearing buys a line on your CV and nothing else.

Keep every listing saying the same thing

Your directory profile, your CCO contracts, any county listing, your one-pager, and your own website should all carry the same name, address, phone number, and list of what you accept. When one changes, change them all the same week. The one-pager is the master copy I would keep; every other listing is a copy of it, and twice a year I would read them side by side.

This is how I run this site and what the OHA, Multnomah County, and licensing board pages linked here say; it is not legal or ethics advice, and your board and its code get the final word on your referral obligations.

Further reading

• Oregon Health Authority: Coordinated Care Organizations. The list of all 15 CCOs with service areas and provider contacts; it also shows there is no single statewide provider intake.
• Multnomah County: Behavioral Health. The county's own page, with provider-resources sections that sit outside the CCO system entirely.
• Oregon Board of Licensed Professional Counselors and Therapists. Where counselors and marriage and family therapists find the rules that bind them, including on referrals.
• Oregon Board of Licensed Social Workers. The same for social work licensees.
• Oregon Board of Psychology. The same for psychologists.