What are the ABA CPT codes?

The adaptive behavior services family runs 97151 through 97158, plus two Category III codes, 0362T and 0373T. In outline: 97151 is behavior identification assessment by a qualified professional, 97152 the supporting assessment by a technician, 97153 treatment by protocol delivered by a technician, 97154 that same treatment in a group, 97155 treatment with protocol modification by a professional, 97156 family guidance, 97157 multiple-family group guidance, and 97158 group treatment with protocol modification.

Adaptive behavior treatment by protocol, administered by a technician under the direction of a qualified health professional, face to face with one patient. It is the workhorse direct-therapy code and the one most ABA revenue runs through. Across the 32 state Medicaid schedules that print a 15-minute unit, it ranges from $9.90 in West Virginia to $31.95 in Alaska, with a median of $15.00.

Are the ABA CPT codes billed in 15-minute units?

Usually, but not universally, and you cannot assume it. Most state schedules print a 15-minute unit. Several — Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi, Missouri, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia among them — publish a rate with no time unit stated anywhere. Colorado's 97151 rate of $866.88 is a clear signal that not every published figure is a 15-minute unit.

Which ABA codes do states not pay for?

0362T and 0373T are the least covered: of 47 states with published per-code rates, 30 publish nothing for 0362T and 27 nothing for 0373T. 97157, multiple-family group guidance, is next at 20 states with no published rate. Absence of a rate is not always non-coverage — sometimes the state prices it under a different code system entirely, as Idaho, Maine and Rhode Island do.

ABA CPT Codes 97151–97158: What Each One Is, and What It Pays

The adaptive behavior codes explained one at a time, with the national range each one actually pays across every state Medicaid schedule we have verified — and which codes most states do not price at all.

There are ten codes in the adaptive behavior family, and almost every ABA claim in the country runs through them. This page explains what each one covers, and then does the thing no coding reference does: shows what each actually pays, using every state Medicaid schedule we have read from the primary source.

The codes

Code	What it covers	Who delivers it
97151	Behavior identification assessment — administering assessments, interpreting them, and preparing the report or treatment plan	Physician or other qualified health professional
97152	Behavior identification supporting assessment	One technician, under direction
97153	Adaptive behavior treatment by protocol, face to face with one patient	Technician, under direction
97154	Group adaptive behavior treatment by protocol, two or more patients	Technician, under direction
97155	Adaptive behavior treatment with protocol modification — the professional resolving or modifying the protocol, which may include simultaneous direction of a technician	Physician or other qualified health professional
97156	Family adaptive behavior treatment guidance, with or without the patient present	Physician or other qualified health professional
97157	Multiple-family group adaptive behavior treatment guidance	Physician or other qualified health professional
97158	Group adaptive behavior treatment with protocol modification	Physician or other qualified health professional
0362T	Behavior identification supporting assessment for a patient exhibiting destructive behavior, in a customized environment with two or more technicians	Professional on site, two or more technicians
0373T	Adaptive behavior treatment with protocol modification for a patient exhibiting destructive behavior, in a customized environment with two or more technicians	Professional on site, two or more technicians

The structural split worth internalizing: 97151, 97155, 97156, 97157 and 97158 are professional codes. 97152, 97153 and 97154 are technician codes. Payment follows that line in most states, though not all — Florida pays one rate for 97153 regardless of whether an RBT, a BCaBA or a lead analyst delivers it.

What each code actually pays

This is compiled from our reimbursement dataset, which covers all 50 states and the District of Columbia, each read from the state agency’s own fee schedule.

One methodological rule before the numbers. A rate is only in this table if that state’s own schedule prints a 15-minute unit. States that publish a dollar figure with no stated time unit are excluded, because comparing them would be arithmetic on incompatible things. Colorado shows why: its 97151 is $866.88, which is obviously not fifteen minutes of anything, and Colorado’s schedule states no unit at all.

Code	States with a stated unit	Lowest	Highest	Median
97151	27	$18.79 Washington	$112.65 New Mexico	$29.14
97152	26	$9.90 West Virginia	$58.33 New Mexico	$19.26
97153	32	$9.90 West Virginia	$31.95 Alaska	$15.00
97154	29	$2.72 North Dakota	$15.58 Georgia	$7.49
97155	29	$14.09 Washington	$49.35 Vermont	$25.05
97156	27	$13.61 Georgia	$41.97 Alaska	$22.09
97157	21	$2.50 Alabama	$51.59 New Mexico	$11.70
97158	22	$3.31 New York	$24.86 Hawaii	$12.05
0362T	17	$12.19 Florida	$112.29 New Mexico	$30.00
0373T	20	$12.19 Florida	$107.13 New Mexico	$25.74

All figures per 15 minutes, fee-for-service, as of 6 August 2026.

Two things stand out. 97153 has the tightest spread of any code — a little over three to one, low to high — which makes sense for the code that carries the most volume and gets the most rate-setting attention. And 97157 has the widest, better than twenty to one, from $2.50 in Alabama to $51.59 in New Mexico. Multiple-family group guidance is the code states have thought about least, and it shows.

The codes most states do not price

Coverage is far from universal, and this is the part billing references almost never say out loud. Across the 47 states publishing per-code rates:

Code	States publishing no rate
0362T	30 of 47
0373T	27 of 47
97157	20 of 47
97152	15 of 47
97158	15 of 47
97154	9 of 47
97151	6 of 47
97156	6 of 47
97155	5 of 47
97153	3 of 47

The two Category III codes are barely covered. If your treatment model relies on two technicians in a customized environment for a patient with destructive behavior, in most states there is no fee-for-service rate to bill it against.

A caution on reading absence. It does not always mean non-coverage. Idaho, Maine and Rhode Island are the three states with no published 97153 rate, and none of them is refusing to pay for ABA — they price it under entirely different code systems. Idaho bills its own H-code ladder, Maine bills H2021 with modifiers, and Rhode Island pays ABA inside its Home-Based Therapeutic Services benefit using H-codes and T-codes. Elsewhere, a missing rate can mean the code is explicitly not covered: Minnesota marks 97152, 97158 and 0362T with a factor code its own legend defines as “general price not covered.”

Three things that break a claim

Modifiers change the rate, not just the record. In Pennsylvania, 97153 pays $12.73 with no modifier and $15.76 with U8. In Wisconsin, the same code pays $11.91 at technician level and $41.44 with TF at licensed-supervisor level. In Florida, 97154 runs from $7.58 down to $5.58 depending on whether the modifier says two clients or six. Quoting a bare code in these states will misstate what you are owed by a factor of three.

Some rows are priced at zero on purpose. Florida marks 97153 XP and 97155 XP “Not reimbursed” — that is a supervisee working under concurrent supervision, with the supervisor billing the ordinary code instead. A zero there is a billing rule, not a rate.

The fee schedule is usually the floor, not the number. Most states deliver ABA through managed care, where plan contracts set the actual rate and are not public. Wisconsin is a useful exception: behavioral treatment is an administered fee-for-service carve-out for all Medicaid members, so its published rates are the operative statewide rates.

Where these figures come from

Every number here traces to a state agency’s own published fee schedule, with the effective date recorded on that state’s page. We do not use aggregators or billing-company summaries for rate data. Where a state’s schedule prints no time unit, we say so rather than assume fifteen minutes — a rule that keeps ten states out of the table above and is the difference between a comparison and a guess.

If you need your own state rather than the national picture, every schedule is linked with its effective date on the reimbursement dataset. For what payers require before they will authorize any of these codes, see prior authorization and denials.