CareSource Indiana ABA coverage (Hoosier Healthwise / HIP).

Follows the Indiana Medicaid rule: ABA is covered for members 20 years of age and younger. Effective April 1, 2026 coverage runs exclusively through EPSDT, and for dates of service on or after October 1, 2026 IHCP no longer authorizes or reimburses ABA for members 21 and older — a state policy that binds every MCE.^[4][3][5]

Follows the Indiana Medicaid rule: a CDE more than one year old requires an updated statement of need, which must include a referral from an appropriate referring practitioner and an up-to-date behavior assessment completed by the ABA provider. Members continuing current services need no new CDE but do need an updated behavior assessment and treatment plan. A behavior assessment completed within the previous six months should be obtained from the original provider rather than repeated. IHCP states these documentation requirements apply to managed care as well as fee-for-service. BT2026160 (9/29/2026) since narrowed when that paperwork is due: “statement of need” and “referral” now mean the same thing, and one is required only at onset of ABA if the CDE is more than a year old, at reauthorization when an active member’s CDE crosses one year, or with a new PA after a six-month gap in ABA services — not with every reauthorization or annually — while reassessment and an updated treatment plan are still due at least every six months.^[5][4][11]

Follows the Indiana Medicaid rule — which is also CareSource's stated position, since it archived its own ABA policy (MM-0900) at the end of 2022 and reserves the right to follow CMS and state guidelines without a formal documented policy. The CDE must be performed by a doctoral-level licensed clinical psychologist endorsed as an HSPP, a licensed physician, a licensed APRN, or a licensed physician assistant with specialized training in the current DSM autism criteria. The archived policy's looser formulation — “licensed physician, HSPP, or qualified specialist” — is no longer the operative document.^[5][1][2]

Follows the Indiana Medicaid rule: the behavior assessment must include the Vineland Comprehensive Parent Interview Form with the Maladaptive Behavior domain, the BASC Parenting Relationship Questionnaire and an age-appropriate objective direct skills assessment, signed by the lead analyst and parent or guardian, with the complete scoring report including outcome scores and graphs submitted with the PA. Only BASC-4 satisfies the requirement after October 1, 2026. There is no CareSource-specific ABA form — submissions use the Indiana Medicaid universal PA request form — so the state's package is the package.^[4][6][1]

Follows the Indiana Medicaid rule: a physician must make a treatment referral recommending ABA therapy, and the CDE’s own required components include a physician’s referral for autism-specific services. Under BT2026160 (9/29/2026) the referral/statement of need must come from an HSPP-endorsed doctoral psychologist, a licensed physician, a licensed APRN or a licensed physician assistant — a BCaBA, BCBA, PT, SLP or OT cannot complete it. Prior authorization is required on top of the referral for every ABA service, through this plan rather than through Acentra Health.^[4][5][11]

Follows the Indiana Medicaid rule, with no ABA telehealth policy of the plan’s own. Effective April 1, 2026, IHCP no longer allows 97151, 97152, 97153, 97154 or 0373T to be billed with telehealth modifier 95, so the assessment, reassessments and all direct and group treatment are in person. Only 97155 and 97156 remain telehealth-eligible; IHCP’s provider reference module adds that RBTs and BCaBAs may not deliver any ABA service via telehealth, that remote 97155 is payable only when an HSPP, BCBA or BCBA-D supervises an RBT who is delivering 97153 in person, and that audio-only ABA is never reimbursable (modifier 95 plus U3). IHCP Bulletin BT202662 (4/28/2026) adds that supervision “may be rendered via synchronous telehealth and billed using modifier 95” but “is intended to supplement, not replace, the majority of in-person services.” The module is written for fee-for-service and IHCP says MCEs set their own billing requirements, so confirm with the plan before billing remote 97155 or 97156.^{[3][4][5][12]}

CareSource publishes the Indiana statutory clock, marked “Updated July 1st, 2025”: standard pre-service “Forty-eight (48) business hours” and urgent pre-service “Twenty-four (24) business hours,” both excluding weekends and holidays and each extendable 14 calendar days; urgent concurrent 48 hours with no extension; post-service (retro) 30 calendar days. That is IC 27-1-37.5-23, which applies to Medicaid risk-based managed care and deems the service authorized if a deadline is missed; the federal floor (42 CFR 438.210(d): 7 calendar days, 72 hours expedited) is looser. No ABA-specific reauthorization submission lead time is published.^{[28][29][27][30]}

CareSource is secondary to any other coverage (IHCP is payer of last resort), and it publishes its own PA-when-secondary rule, which is narrower than the IHCP module's general statement: when CareSource requires PA and another payer is primary, the “Provider must follow the primary insurers requirements and obtain prior authorization,” and must “obtain prior authorization from CareSource when primary payer’s authorization was denied partially or in full” — attaching “the primary payer's authorization denial and/or the primary payers EOP denial.” Practically: get the commercial plan's ABA authorization first; if it is cut or denied, request CareSource PA with that denial. Bill the primary first and submit its EOB/EOP with the CareSource claim. TRICARE is not a problem here: 32 CFR 199.8 excludes Medicaid from the “double coverage plans” TRICARE pays after, so for a child with both, TRICARE pays before Medicaid.^[28][31][32]

Follows the Indiana Medicaid rule: ABA performed by a BCaBA or credentialed RBT must be under the direct supervision of a BCBA, BCBA-D or HSPP, and since April 1, 2026 at least 1 hour of BCBA (or IHCP-approved qualifying clinician) supervision is required per 8 hours of technician-delivered therapy. Behavior assessments may only be performed by a psychologist, BCBA-D or master's-level BCBA. IHCP states that its ABA documentation requirements apply to both fee-for-service and managed care, and this plan publishes no supervision standard of its own. BT202662 (4/28/2026) defines how the floor is measured: monthly, per member (“not aggregated across technicians or across Medicaid members”), proportionally when a member gets fewer than eight technician hours in the month, and counting both billable 97155 and documented nonbillable case supervision (fidelity checks, session-note review) — but not administrative supervision such as scheduling or staff meetings. Shortfalls are subject to claim audit, postpayment review and recoupment.^{[4][3][5][12]}

Follows the Indiana Medicaid limits: up to 40 hours per week may be requested with anything beyond that needing an additional PA; IHCP policy limits each ABA PA request to six months; and since April 1, 2026 comprehensive ABA (16+ hours/week, modifier UA) draws from a 4,000-hour (16,000-unit) lifetime allocation per member, with 97155 and 97156 excluded and targeted ABA (≤15 hours/week) exempt. At the state level IHCP applies the Medicaid NCCI MUEs to fee-for-service professional claims per member, per rendering provider, per date of service (CMS Q4 2026 table: 97153 at 32 units, 97155 at 24, 97151 at 32, 97156 at 16); the IHCP NCCI module leaves managed care claims to each MCE, so confirm the plan’s own daily edits. Open question for managed care: IC 27-1-37.5-26(b), in force since July 1, 2025 and reaching Medicaid risk-based managed care through IC 27-1-37.5-5(a)(3), says an authorization "shall be valid for at least one (1) year after the date the health care provider receives the authorization," and CareSource's July 2025 IHCP Works deck lists "Approved Authorization — Valid for 365 calendar days." But IHCP Bulletin BT2026136 (8/18/2026), addressed to the MCOs and the FFS PA-UM contractor alike, still describes ABA as running on a "standard six-month authorization period." No IHCP bulletin or MCE notice we could find reconciles the two, so ask the MCE which span it is issuing before you plan a reauthorization calendar.^{[20][21][4][3][8][26][27][28]}

Follows the Indiana Medicaid rule; the plan publishes no session-note rule of its own. IHCP’s ABA documentation requirements require "session notes, which must be signed by the rendering practitioner," each including the date, time, location and duration of services and the session-specific targeted skills and the member’s response to the treatment plan goals, producible within 72 hours of a request; the behavior assessment and treatment plan must each be signed by the lead analyst and the parent or guardian. IHCP states that "documentation requirements outlined in IHCP policy are applicable to both FFS and managed care." No signing deadline is published.^[4][5]

Follows the Indiana Medicaid rule: the treatment plan must be built around the member's school attendance (including homeschooling) and other daily activities, while services focusing solely on recreational or educational outcomes are not covered, and neither are services duplicative of an IEP that address the same goals using the same techniques as the treatment plan.^[4]

Follows the Indiana Medicaid rule: ABA rendered by a BCaBA or RBT must be billed under the NPI of an IHCP-enrolled ABA therapist or school corporation, on a professional claim. Since July 1, 2025 the rendering practitioner must be enrolled under ABA specialty 615, 624 or 625, and since April 1, 2025 the rendering NPI must align with the credential-level modifier (U1 RBT / U2 BCaBA / U3 BCBA-HSPP). Plan-level claim formatting may still differ — MCEs publish their own billing requirements.^[4][3]

Not published by Indiana Medicaid or by this plan. IHCP is explicit that within managed care “individual managed care entities (MCEs) establish and publish their own billing and reimbursement requirements,” so unlike the clinical criteria, code-pair rules are not inherited from the state by default. The IHCP rule this plan may or may not mirror: BT202662 (4/28/2026) says “CPT code 97155 may be billed concurrently only with CPT codes 97153 and 97154,” and only when the analyst is actively directing the technician through a modified protocol.^[5][12]

Ask the plan: The MCE directly — ask whether 97155 pays alongside 97153 for the same clock time, and request the plan's billing and reimbursement requirements in writing.