ABA Medicaid rates in Alaska are the highest in the country for technician-delivered therapy: Alaska Medicaid pays $127.80 an hour for code 97153, ranking 1st of 42 states and sitting 101.5% above the national median of $63.44. The rate is $31.95 per 15-minute unit and has been in effect since 2026-07-01.
That figure is the product of a large July 2026 update. For an ABA agency deciding where to open or expand, Alaska now pays 101.5% above the national median for the hour that drives most billing, and it pays near the top on every analyst code as well. Every rate below is compiled from official state Medicaid publications and links to its source document on the Alaska Medicaid rates hub.
The most important fact about Alaska ABA rates is the "Medicaid Procedure Codes and Rates - Autism Services effective 2026-07-01" schedule, which carries a 40.93% change. The prior year's update, effective 2025-07-01, was 3.19%, and the one before that, effective 2024-07-01, was 15.29%. In other words, Alaska's ABA schedule moved from a routine adjustment to a step change in a single year.
The regulatory trail around the increase:
- Notice of proposed changes on Medicaid payment rates for behavioral health services (OPN 222666), published 2026-02-12.
- 2026 Annual Rate Update - Notice of Medicaid State Plan Amendment (OPN 224328), published 2026-06-30, effective 2026-07-01.
- CMS approval - Alaska SPA AK-26-0007, published 2026-09-04, effective 2026-07-01.
- CMS approval - Alaska SPA AK-25-0008, published 2026-07-09, covering the 2025-07-01 update.
Because CMS approved the 2026 amendment after the effective date, agencies billing between July and September 2026 should confirm that claims paid at the new rate and reconcile any that did not.
Alaska pays the same unit rate, $41.97 per 15 minutes or $167.88 an hour, for analyst protocol modification, assessment and caregiver training. That flat structure is unusual, and it ranks differently depending on the code because other states treat those services differently.
| Code | Alaska per hour | Rank | vs national median |
|---|---|---|---|
| 97153 technician therapy | $127.80 | 1 of 42 | +101.5% |
| 97155 analyst plan changes | $167.88 | 2 of 41 | +66.2% |
| 97156 caregiver training | $167.88 | 3 of 43 | +77.1% |
| 97151 analyst assessment | $167.88 | 7 of 41 | +44.0% |
| 97158 analyst-led group | $60.76 | 4 of 30 | +62.9% |
| 97154 technician-led group | $45.88 | 10 of 37 | +53.1% |
Only Vermont pays more on 97155 ($197.40). On caregiver training, Rhode Island ($219.88, billed under T1027) and Hawaii ($184.80) are ahead. On assessment, the leaders are New Mexico ($450.60), Vermont, Minnesota, Delaware and Kansas, so Alaska's assessment rate is strong but not exceptional.
What a flat analyst rate means in practice
When every analyst code pays the same, the choice between them is purely clinical. A BCBA hour is worth $167.88 whether it is spent assessing, adjusting protocols with the client, or training the family. That removes the incentive, present in many states, to steer analyst time toward whichever code pays best, and it makes analyst revenue easy to forecast: it depends on authorized hours, not on the mix.
Group therapy is the one area where Alaska is merely above average. Technician-led groups at $11.47 a unit ($45.88 an hour) rank 10th, well behind Georgia ($123.64) and Iowa ($114.36), which pay their full individual rate for groups. Analyst-led groups (97158) pay $60.76 an hour, 4th of 30.
Alaska publishes no rate for technician-assisted assessment (97152). Agencies that use a technician during the initial evaluation in other states should plan for that time to be unbillable in Alaska, or schedule assessments so the analyst's own 97151 time covers the work.
Every Alaska ABA code is priced per 15-minute unit, so an hour equals four units. A three-hour technician session billed as 97153 produces twelve units at $31.95 each. The flip side is that every lost quarter-hour costs $31.95 in technician time or $41.97 in analyst time, which is more than most states pay per unit.
That makes documentation discipline unusually valuable in Alaska. Recording actual start and stop times, rather than scheduled times, and scheduling sessions in clean unit blocks protects revenue that would be a rounding error elsewhere. With rates this high, a single missed unit per session across a caseload adds up quickly.
Alaska's wage data sits above the national figures, but far less than the rate premium does. The Alaska median for the closest comparable technician occupation was $22.77 an hour in May 2025, against $22.08 nationally. For the analyst proxy occupation, Alaska's median was $38.83 against $28.53 nationally. Neither role has its own federal occupation code, so these are floors rather than market pay for credentialed RBTs and BCBAs.
The economics that follow:
- Technician hour (97153): the median wage is 25.3% of the $127.80 rate, leaving $95.44 an hour after a loaded wage.
- Analyst hour (97155, 97151, 97156): the wage is 32.9% of the $167.88 rate, leaving $112.69 an hour.
That margin has to cover travel, which in Alaska can be substantial, plus cancellations, supervision that is not separately billable, scheduling and administration. Even so, few states leave this much room. It also gives Alaska agencies latitude to pay well above the proxy wage to recruit credentialed staff.
Where the real constraint sits
In most states the rate is the binding limit on an ABA agency. In Alaska it is staffing and geography. A technician who can deliver only a few billable hours a day because of travel between communities erodes the margin far faster than any rate change would. Agencies that cluster caseloads, use clinic-based sessions where clinically appropriate, and keep technicians fully scheduled capture the benefit of the rate; those that do not will find the premium absorbed by drive time and idle hours.
No prior-authorization rule or unit limit appears at the code level for any of the ABA codes Alaska pays: 97151, 97153, 97154, 97155, 97156, 97158 and T1027. That does not mean services are unmanaged; it means no code-level authorization rule or quantity cap appears in the published schedules. Agencies should still follow treatment-plan and medical-necessity documentation requirements in the state's program manuals.
The practical effect is that billing risk shifts from authorization denials to documentation audits. With no quantity cap to stop an over-billed claim at the door, records must support every unit on review. Treatment plans that state the recommended hours per code, and session notes that tie each unit to a plan goal, are the safeguard.
Alaska runs ABA through fee-for-service. The payers named are Alaska Medicaid (all enrollees, FFS) and Denali KidCare CHIP, and the ABA rates sit under the Alaska Medicaid behavioral health services program administered by the Division of Behavioral Health. No managed-care service-line rule applies to ABA, so the published fee schedule is the rate an agency receives. The Alaska managed-care page shows the payers on file.
For an agency, that means no plan-by-plan contracting, no network rate negotiations and a single rate update cycle to follow. It also means a rate change in the state schedule passes straight through to every Medicaid client on the caseload, which is why the 2026 update matters so much.
The broader 2026 picture in Alaska shows the ABA increase was an outlier. Most behavioral health and long-term care schedules effective 2026-07-01 moved by 3.2%, including Community Behavioral Health clinic rates and personal care rates, while the 1115 Behavioral Health waiver services chart rose 21.17%. SFY 2027 fee schedules were posted in several releases in August 2026, and a public meeting on proposed Medicaid payment rates was noticed for September 23, 2026.
For ABA providers, the lesson is that Alaska's annual July update is the moment to watch. The autism services schedule has moved every July since 2024, and the size of each change has varied widely.
Alaska leads a short group of states paying more than $110 an hour on 97153: Georgia at $123.64, Iowa at $114.36 and the District of Columbia at $110.00. At the other end, Louisiana pays $40.00 and New York $38.52, and West Virginia's technician figure of $10.00 is billed under H2014.
For a multi-state operator, the gap is the story: an hour of technician therapy in Alaska pays $127.80 against New York's $38.52. Georgia is the closest peer on both the technician and analyst ladders; compare it on the Georgia ABA rates page. Among Pacific neighbors, Hawaii pays more for caregiver training but far less for the technician hour, and Washington sits on the national low list for analyst codes.
- Model the annual update. Because Alaska revises the autism schedule each July, multi-year budgets should treat the rate as a moving figure and plan around the update calendar.
- Price staff to recruit. With wages at 25.3% of the technician rate, paying above the proxy wage is affordable and often necessary to staff remote areas.
- Budget travel explicitly. Model unbillable travel time per technician per day; it is the cost most likely to erase the margin.
- Reconcile after approvals. When CMS approval follows the effective date, audit remittances for claims paid at the old rate.
Rates on this page are compiled from official state Medicaid publications, including the Alaska Medicaid Procedure Codes and Rates for Autism Services and the SFY2027 fee schedules. Each rate in our dataset links to its source document, and hourly figures are the 15-minute unit rate multiplied to an hour. All 26,981 current Alaska Medicaid rates, with history back to 2018, are searchable on our plans. The national ABA rates hub shows every state on the same per-hour basis, and our methodology explains how 15-minute units are converted and how ranks are set.