ABA Medicaid rates in Mississippi put the technician hour near the national middle and the assessment codes near the top: Mississippi Medicaid pays $60.32 an hour for code 97153, ranking 23rd of 42 states and 4.9% below the national median of $63.44. The rate is $15.08 per 15-minute unit, effective 2025-12-01.
Mississippi's distinguishing feature is its assessment schedule. Technician-assisted assessment (97152) pays $141.04 an hour, the 3rd-highest rate in the country, and analyst assessment ranks 6th. Combined with low local wages, that gives Mississippi agencies unusually wide margins on assessment work. All rates are compiled from official Mississippi Medicaid publications and link to their source documents on the Mississippi Medicaid rates hub.
| Code | Per hour | Rank | vs national median | Effective |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 97151 analyst assessment | $171.32 | 6 of 41 | +47.0% | 2025-07-01 |
| 97152 technician assessment support | $141.04 | 3 of 29 | +83.1% | 2025-07-01 |
| 97155 analyst plan changes | $97.40 | 24 of 41 | -3.6% | 2025-12-01 |
| 97156 caregiver training | $97.40 | 21 of 43 | +2.7% | 2025-12-01 |
| 97153 technician therapy | $60.32 | 23 of 42 | -4.9% | 2025-12-01 |
| 97158 analyst-led group | $48.68 | 10 of 30 | +30.5% | 2025-12-01 |
Technician-led groups (97154) pay $9.42 a unit, or $37.68 an hour, ranking 12th of 37 and 25.8% above the national median of $29.96.
The schedule has two effective dates. The assessment codes took effect 2025-07-01; the treatment, training and group codes were updated 2025-12-01. Billing tables should carry both dates, so that claims for services before December 2025 price at the edition in force on the date of service.
Code 97153 is the technician's one-on-one treatment hour and the code that fills most of a child's weekly authorization. Mississippi pays it at a median-level rate: 23rd of 42 states and 4.9% below the median.
On its own, that rank would suggest a tight market. The wage picture changes the conclusion. Because the technician wage proxy in Mississippi is far below the national figure, the same middle-of-the-table rate leaves a larger share of each hour for supervision, training, travel and administration than it would in a high-wage state. A Mississippi agency is not paid generously per hour, but it is paid adequately relative to its labor cost.
The risk is that the margin is concentrated in delivered hours. Home-based programs spread across a wide service area spend unpaid time driving between clients. Every cancellation also removes revenue while staff time is still paid. Agencies that cluster caseloads geographically, or run clinic-based sessions, protect the margin best.
Mississippi appears on the national high list for 97152, behind only North Carolina ($246.92) and Iowa ($142.92). Its analyst assessment rate of $171.32 is 6th of 41, behind New Mexico, Vermont, Minnesota, Delaware and Kansas.
For an agency, the assessment premium matters at intake and reassessment, when an analyst and technician together build or update the treatment plan. In Mississippi, the technician's time during that process pays $141.04 an hour against $60.32 for ongoing therapy, so well-run assessments are a meaningful revenue line, not a cost center.
Making the most of the assessment premium
Three practices help. Schedule reassessments on time, so authorized assessment hours are not lost when a review date passes. Involve a technician in assessments where clinically appropriate, since 97152 is separately priced and highly ranked. And document assessment time with the same rigor as treatment time, because a high rate also invites scrutiny.
Analyst treatment direction (97155) and caregiver training (97156) share a single rate, $24.35 per 15 minutes or $97.40 an hour. Treatment direction ranks 24th of 41 and 3.6% below the median; caregiver training ranks 21st of 43 and 2.7% above it.
Both are essentially median rates. The shared rate is useful in practice: an analyst hour earns the same whether it is spent directing a technician's session or coaching a parent, so treatment plans can be built around clinical need rather than billing incentives. At the analyst proxy wage, both codes leave $65.29 an hour after a loaded wage, enough to support reasonable supervision ratios.
Mississippi pays both group codes above their national medians: 25.8% above for technician-led groups and 30.5% above for analyst-led groups. That makes group social-skills programming more viable in Mississippi than in many states, where group rates are a small fraction of the individual rate.
The analyst-led group rate of $12.17 per 15 minutes is the stronger of the two, ranking 10th of 30. An agency with enough clients of similar age and goals can use groups to extend analyst time across several children while billing a rate that sits well above the national norm. Group rates are paid per child, so attendance and group size determine what each staff hour earns. Groups fit best as a complement to individual therapy for children ready to practice skills with peers.
Mississippi's wages sit well below national levels. The median wage for the closest comparable technician occupation was $15.00 an hour in May 2025, against $22.08 nationally; the analyst proxy was $22.59, against $28.53. Both are proxy occupations and understate pay for credentialed RBTs and BCBAs.
- 97153: wages take 35.3% of the $60.32 rate, leaving $39.00 an hour after a loaded wage.
- 97155 and 97156: wages take 33.0% of the $97.40 rate, leaving $65.29.
- 97152: wages take 15.1% of the $141.04 rate, leaving $119.72.
- 97151: wages take 18.7% of the $171.32 rate, leaving $139.21.
The technician margin is better than the 23rd-place rank alone would suggest, because local wages are low. The practical constraint is recruiting credentialed staff at wages well above the proxy, which the margins can support. Agencies that pay above the local market to attract and keep RBTs and BCBAs are using the margin the way it is meant to be used.
The coverage rules list no prior-authorization rules for 97151, eight each for 97152, 97153, 97154 and 97158, and nine each for 97155 and 97156. No unit limits are published. Agencies can begin an initial analyst assessment without a code-level authorization rule, but every subsequent service requires authorization.
Eight or nine rules per code is a heavy authorization load. In practice, it means intake teams need a checklist for each code, a tracker for authorization dates and units, and a process for requesting renewals well before an authorization lapses. The cost of that administrative work belongs in any Mississippi budget alongside wages.
Mississippi's programs include Mississippi Medicaid fee-for-service, MississippiCAN (the Mississippi Coordinated Access Network, with risk-bearing coordinated care organizations) and MississippiCHIP. For ABA, the state's rule is "Plans must pay at least the published rate," the same rule that applies to behavioral health. The rates on this page are the floor for MississippiCAN plan contracts.
Two state directed payment items relate specifically to autism services: CMS approved the DOM SFY 2022 ASD preprint (2021-07-01 to 2022-06-30) and the DOM SFY 2023 ASD preprint (2022-07-01 to 2023-06-30). Those preprints show Mississippi has used directed payments for autism services in past years. Four plans are on file; the Mississippi managed-care page lists them along with the rule for each service line.
On 97153, Mississippi's $60.32 sits in the middle of the table, below Alaska ($127.80), Georgia ($123.64) and Iowa ($114.36), and above Louisiana ($40.00) and New York ($38.52).
Regionally, Mississippi's $15.08 per technician unit is above Kentucky ($12.18) and Alabama ($10.00), and Louisiana, another neighbor, pays well below Mississippi on technician therapy, analyst treatment and assessment. For a Gulf South operator, Mississippi is one of the steadier ABA markets in the region.
Start with the hours mix: estimate how a typical child's authorized hours split between technician therapy, analyst treatment, caregiver training, groups and assessment, then apply the per-hour rates. In Mississippi, the assessment codes and groups carry more weight than in most states, so model them explicitly rather than folding them into an average.
Then model delivered hours, not authorized hours, and test the budget against a lower delivery rate. Build wages from what you will actually pay to recruit credentialed staff, not the proxy. For MississippiCAN contracts, treat the published schedule as the minimum. The national ABA rates hub compares every state, and the Mississippi hub covers all 30,350 current Mississippi Medicaid rates, including the Mississippi behavioral health rates many ABA agencies also bill.
Rates on this page are compiled from official Mississippi Division of Medicaid publications. Each rate in the full dataset links to its source document and effective date. Per-hour figures convert 15-minute unit rates to an hourly equivalent, and ranks compare only states that publish the same service. Our methodology explains the conversion and ranking rules.
Where a rate has changed, the full dataset keeps the earlier editions, with Mississippi history reaching back to 1990, so an agency can see when each ABA rate last moved and which publication set it. That history is useful when a payer contract references an older schedule, or when a claim from before December 2025 needs to be priced at the rate in force on its date of service.