Alabama Medicaid & CHIP Launch Coverage Of Applied Behavior Analysis For Children With Autism

On October 1, 2018, the Alabama Medicaid program and the state’s Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), called All Kids Health, began covering applied behavior analysis (ABA) for child beneficiaries diagnosed with autism. Alabama Medicaid staff is managing the ABA therapy program. Licensing for ABA therapists and technicians in Alabama is overseen by the Alabama Behavioral Analyst Licensing Board.

In May 2017, Alabama enacted an autism insurance mandate to require health benefit plans to cover medically necessary treatment for autism, including ABA, through age 18. The mandate had a staged implementation. The provisions applied first to fully insured large . . .