Breaking News ABA Staff

Why Independent ABA Operators Need a Fractional CFO

June 3, 2026 · 6:07 PM

Your BCBA program prepared you for clinical work. It did not prepare you to model unit economics, forecast cash through authorization cycles, or understand your financials at the depth the environment now…

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CareSource Georgia Unilaterally Slashes ABA Rates 20% Leaving ABA Families and Providers Scrambling

May 22, 2026 · 8:44 PM

CareSource Georgia, leveraging its de facto monopoly status, cuts ABA therapy reimbursement by 20% on May 11, giving providers an ultimatum during a managed care transition that has left no alternative network…

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Abu Dhabi Builds Global Autism Platform With ADNOC Backing

May 20, 2026 · 7:04 AM

The 4th International Autism Conference drew about 6,000 participants and 86 international speakers before closing on April 28 with a strategic rebrand. The Zayed Authority for People of Determination will reorganize the…

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ABA Test-Prep Market Booms as BCBA Pass Rates Slide

May 20, 2026 · 6:58 AM

The 2025 BCBA exam posted a 51% first-time pass rate, the lowest the Behavior Analyst Certification Board has ever recorded. The same year, U.S. employers posted 132,307 jobs requiring the credential against…

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A New Pipeline for ABA: Universities Launch ABAI-Accredited Bachelor’s Degrees to Meet Demand

May 6, 2026 · 3:50 PM

Employers posted more than 132,000 jobs requiring BCBA certification in 2025, up 28% in a year. The BACB’s 2032 pathway transition will route every future candidate through ABAI- or APBA-accredited programs, turning…

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Daemen Approved to Offer First PhD Program in Behavioral Science

April 16, 2026 · 9:15 AM

Daemen University received approval from the New York State Board of Regents in December 2025 to amend its charter and master plan to offer academic […]

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Study Reveals Shift in How Families Define Success in Autism Treatment

April 14, 2026 · 9:41 AM

A new report from Catalight shows parents are targeting goals that extend beyond traditional measures – focusing on wellbeing and overall happiness over behavior changes.

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Meet the Digital Marketing Agency Sending Shockwaves Through ABA—and Why the Practices Using Them Can’t Stop Their Phones From Ringing

April 10, 2026 · 10:50 AM

The digital landscape in ABA is shifting faster than most practice owners realize. Organic search, pay-per-click, AI-powered recommendations, local search optimization — the companies that have embraced these channels with the right…

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Medicaid MCO vs. Fee-for-Service: Why the Same Child Gets Different ABA Coverage in the Same State

March 19, 2026 · 11:00 AM

Two children live in the same city. Both have autism. Both qualify for Medicaid. Both are entitled to medically necessary ABA therapy under the federal EPSDT mandate. But one is enrolled in…

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The 2027 CPT Code Overhaul: What Six New Codes and the Death of T-Codes Mean for ABA Billing

March 19, 2026 · 8:24 AM

In September 2025, the American Medical Association’s CPT Editorial Panel approved the most significant revision to ABA billing codes since the field received its first permanent CPT codes in 2019. Six new…

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The Managed Care War: How Texas Became ABA’s Biggest Battlefield

March 18, 2026 · 6:00 PM

Texas was the last state in America to cover ABA therapy through Medicaid. When it finally did, in February 2022, it routed every dollar through managed care organizations that set rates too…

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The EPSDT Mandate: The Federal Law That States Keep Violating on ABA

March 18, 2026 · 2:00 PM

The Early and Periodic Screening, Diagnostic, and Treatment mandate is the most powerful protection families of autistic children have under federal law. It requires Medicaid to cover all medically necessary services for…

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The $14 Billion Line Item: How ABA Became Medicaid’s Fastest-Growing Budget Problem — and Why Every State Is Now Deciding What to Do About It

March 18, 2026 · 11:00 AM

Medicaid spending on Applied Behavior Analysis therapy grew 279 percent from 2018 to 2024, reaching $14.49 billion across all states. Indiana's ABA spending increased 2,800 percent in six years. Nebraska's grew 1,700…

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A Diagnosis, a Mission, and a $400 Million Bet: How Lighthouse Autism Center Became the Midwest’s Leading ABA Provider — and Why It’s Just Getting Started

March 18, 2026 · 8:00 AM

Gregg and Sandy Maggioli founded Lighthouse Autism Center in 2012 after their son's autism diagnosis led them through Indiana's near-empty early intervention landscape. Twelve years and two private equity rounds later —…

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Three BCBAs, One City, 25 Years: How Behavioral Innovations Built a 100-Clinic Empire That Almost Nobody Outside Texas Has Heard Of

March 17, 2026 · 5:00 PM

In 2000, Billy Edwards, Carla Edwards, and Lori Russo opened Dallas-Fort Worth's first ABA consultation office. They were among the earliest Board Certified Behavior Analysts in the country, and they had a…

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Two Rhodes Scholars, One Conviction: Cortica Is Building the Autism Care Model That the Rest of the Industry Hasn’t Figured Out How to Pay For Yet

March 17, 2026 · 2:00 PM

Neil Hattangadi and Suzanne Goh met as Rhodes Scholars at Harvard Medical School, married, and spent years working separately — he in medical devices and hedge funds, she in a clinic that…

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Two Bottlenecks, One Career: Jamie Pagliaro Built the ABA Training Infrastructure — Now He’s Attacking the Diagnosis Delay That Precedes It

March 17, 2026 · 8:00 AM

For sixteen years at RethinkFirst, Jamie Pagliaro built the platform that put BCBA supervision and RBT training in the cloud, reaching more than 30,000 clinicians before COVID made remote training an industry…

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Greg Hanley Spent Thirty-Five Years Proving That Effective ABA and Compassionate ABA Are the Same Thing

March 16, 2026 · 6:00 PM

With 100-plus publications, 15,000 citations, and a clinical method adopted by providers on six continents, Dr. Gregory Hanley is behavior analysis's most influential practitioner-researcher. In August 2024, he brought his entire framework…

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How Lorri Unumb Turned Her Son’s Diagnosis Into the Law That Changed Autism Insurance Forever

March 16, 2026 · 4:29 PM

A DOJ litigator-turned-law-professor wrote a bill at her kitchen table in 2005 because insurance wouldn't cover her son's therapy. Her husband took the laws she passed and made insurers comply with them.…

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Linda LeBlanc Came to Action Behavior Centers to Prove What ABA Can Do. Payers Are Starting to Listen

March 16, 2026 · 4:00 PM

With 130 publications, a former editorship of the field's top journal, and two peer-reviewed studies completed in her first year at Action Behavior Centers, Dr. Linda LeBlanc is constructing something the autism…

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How Ali Satvat Convinced KKR to Bet $5.45 Billion on the Most Underserved Patients in America

March 16, 2026 · 2:00 PM

The architect of KKR's Health Care Strategic Growth platform launched BlueSprig Pediatrics with a blank check and a conviction that the autism therapy sector was where private capital could do the most…

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How Christopher Barnett Built the Nation’s Fastest-Growing Autism Care Company

March 12, 2026 · 6:33 PM

Temple rejected his transfer application. He flew to Philadelphia anyway, walked into the admissions office uninvited, and didn’t leave until they let him in. Twenty years later, he handed the school $55…

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Action Behavior Centers Has Hyper-Scaled — And Shows No Signs of Slowing Down

March 12, 2026 · 6:12 PM

Founded in 2016 by a husband-and-wife team with no previous healthcare business experience, Action Behavior Centers has grown from a single clinic in Austin into a nationwide platform operating in nine states,…

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Nebraska Cut ABA Rates by Up to 79%. Here’s What Happened Next — and What It Means for the Rest of the Country

March 12, 2026 · 5:20 PM

In August 2025, Nebraska slashed Medicaid reimbursements for ABA therapy — by 48% for behavior technicians, 51% for parent training, and as much as 79% for some services — setting off a…

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In-House or Out: The ABA Billing Decision That Quietly Makes or Breaks Clinic Cash Flow

March 12, 2026 · 5:05 PM

In-house billing means control and lower visible costs. Outsourcing means expertise and lower denial rates. The right answer depends on your practice size, payer mix, and growth trajectory — and most ABA…

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From Panic Attacks to Power Broker: How Solome Tibebu Built Behavioral Health Tech Into the Field’s Biggest Tent

March 12, 2026 · 4:32 PM

She spent her Friday nights in high school at Barnes & Noble reading about OCD — then turned two decades of lived experience into the nation’s largest behavioral health technology community, while…

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Arizona’s Ghost Network Problem: How Mercy Care’s Rate Cuts Triggered the Collapse of Medicaid ABA Access for 1,000 Children — and the Two Lawsuits Trying to Stop It

March 12, 2026 · 4:11 PM

When Arizona’s largest Medicaid insurer tried to cut reimbursement rates for ABA therapy by 40% in a single year, the two biggest providers in the state refused to accept the terms. Mercy…

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Indiana’s $611 Million Problem: How the State Let ABA Costs Run Unchecked — and the Sweeping Reform It Built in Response

March 12, 2026 · 2:25 PM

Indiana’s Medicaid ABA program grew from $17 million to $611 million in six years with almost no oversight, no accreditation requirements, and a billing model that rewarded providers for charging more. A…

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Michele Silcox-Beal Wrote the Book on ABA Revenue Cycle Management

March 12, 2026 · 1:27 PM

She spent two decades mastering accounting across industries before walking into a behavioral health company and spotting a gap that didn’t yet have a name — then built one of the country’s…

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From Seatbelt Handbags to Session Notes: How Nicole Sands Built the ABA Industry’s Go-To Bookkeeper

March 11, 2026 · 3:19 AM

She spent 13 years scaling a fashion startup, survived SBA loan audits with Moss Adams, and sold her generalist bookkeeping firm to go all-in on ABA—all while running a 22-acre farm animal…

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