Behavioral health Medicaid rates in Louisiana include the highest hourly rate among the behavioral health services we rank nationally. Louisiana Medicaid pays $177.68 per 15 minutes for code H2021 community-based wraparound services, or $710.72 an hour. That ranks 1st of 11 states and is 685.5% above the $90.48 national median.
At the same time, Louisiana pays the lowest service planning rate in the country, $10.00 on H0032. And its Specialized Behavioral Health fee schedule has moved upward three times since July 2025. For a Louisiana provider, the questions are which services it is qualified to deliver and which edition of the schedule its contracts follow.
Louisiana bills H2021 with modifiers HQ and UA, effective March 1, 2025. The next-highest state, Virginia, pays $280.00 an hour, followed by Oregon at $116.84 and California at $113.52. The lowest wraparound payers are North Dakota ($47.36), New Jersey ($39.08) and Utah ($19.76).
A rate this far above every other state typically reflects a broader, more intensive service definition than a typical hourly wraparound code. For a Louisiana provider qualified to deliver it, wraparound is the most valuable behavioral health service in the state by a wide margin. The practical work is in meeting the service definition and documentation standards, since a rate at this level draws close review of eligibility and billed time.
What the modifiers tell you
The HQ and UA modifiers are part of the rate line, and the rate applies to the specific combination published. A provider billing H2021 with a different modifier set should check the schedule for that combination rather than assume the headline rate applies.
Louisiana publishes a dedicated Specialized Behavioral Health fee schedule alongside its Professional Services Fee Schedule, which covers physician office visits. Community behavioral health rates sit on the specialized schedule, while office psychotherapy codes also appear on the professional schedule.
Because Louisiana issues new editions often, the date of service decides which rate applies. A claim for a service on December 31, 2025 pays at the October 2025 edition; the same service on January 1, 2026 pays at the January edition. Billing teams should keep each edition on file and match claims to dates of service, especially when correcting or resubmitting older claims.
Louisiana's behavioral health schedule has moved sharply in the past year.
- January 1, 2026 edition. Carried a 177.82% change, the largest single movement in any Louisiana behavioral health schedule.
- October 1, 2025 edition. Carried a 17.41% change.
- July 1, 2025 edition. Carried a 25.03% change.
- August 1, 2024 edition. Carried a 0.78% reduction.
LDH Informational Bulletin 25-31, effective January 1, 2026, updated services and rates for the ASAM Criteria 4th Edition, which governs substance use disorder levels of care. CMS also approved renewals of Louisiana's behavioral health state directed payments for 2024 and 2025.
For providers, three upward editions since July 2025 mean any contract or budget built on a 2024 schedule is out of date. Because plans must pay at least the published rate, a provider whose Healthy Louisiana contract still references an older edition should ask the plan to confirm the current floor.
| Service | Code | Louisiana rate | Rank | vs national median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wraparound (hour) | H2021 | $710.72 | 1 of 11 | +685.5% |
| Psychiatric residential treatment (day) | H2013 | $448.73 | 13 of 15 | -14.5% |
| Service plan development | H0032 | $10.00 | 18 of 18 | -67.0% |
- Residential. Louisiana pays $448.73 a day on H2013, effective January 1, 2024, among the three lowest states with Wyoming ($443.78) and Nebraska ($283.19).
- Service planning. H0032 pays $10.00, unchanged since March 20, 2019. The H0031 assessment rate is also $10.00 from the same date.
- Psychotherapy. Code 90832 with modifier HO pays $45.30 for a 30-minute session, or $90.60 an hour, effective July 1, 2025. The national median for outpatient psychotherapy and evaluation is $83.33.
- Skills training. H2014 pays $7.80 per 15 minutes, effective January 1, 2024.
On the professional schedule, the hour-long session, code 90837, pays $100.69, effective July 1, 2025. That ranks 39th of 48 states against a $132.38 national median. The other session lengths sit at a similar depth in the national ranking.
The specialized schedule's 90832 rate with modifier HO converts to $90.60 an hour, which is the better comparison for community clinics billing under that schedule. The difference between the two shows why a Louisiana practice must know which schedule its enrollment places it under: the same clinical hour can be priced differently depending on provider type and modifier.
Louisiana's assessment and planning rates sit at the opposite end from wraparound. Both H0031 and H0032 pay $10.00, the lowest planning rate of 18 states and 67.0% below the median. Both have held since March 20, 2019.
For a community provider, these codes cannot fund the clinician time they require on their own. In practice, Louisiana programs tend to treat assessment and planning as part of the cost of delivering the better-paid services that follow, rather than as revenue lines. Budgets should allocate clinician time for intake and planning without assuming meaningful revenue from these two codes.
Louisiana wages sit well below the national median for almost every behavioral health role. Federal occupational wage data for May 2025:
- Mental health counselor: $18.22 in Louisiana, $28.53 nationally
- Mental health social worker: $22.64 in Louisiana, $28.98 nationally
- Clinical psychologist: $34.29 in Louisiana, $48.36 nationally
- Psychiatrist: $165.88 in Louisiana, $135.51 nationally
- Nurse practitioner: $60.38 in Louisiana, $63.61 nationally
- Psychiatric technician: $15.12 in Louisiana, $21.70 nationally
Low wages turn modest rates into healthy margins. For psychotherapy at $90.60 an hour, the counselor wage is 28.6% of the rate, leaving $64.70 an hour after a loaded wage. The same low wage base helps community programs: a psychiatric technician at the $15.12 Louisiana median costs far less than the $21.70 national figure. Psychiatrists are the exception: at $165.88, they earn more in Louisiana than nationally, so psychiatric time is the costliest input for a Louisiana clinic.
Louisiana's managed-care program is Healthy Louisiana, with plans including Aetna Better Health of Louisiana, AmeriHealth Caritas Louisiana, Healthy Blue, Humana Healthy Horizons in Louisiana and Louisiana Healthcare Connections. Magellan of Louisiana also appears among the plans we track. For the behavioral health service line, plans must pay at least the published rate. Every increase in the Specialized Behavioral Health fee schedule therefore raises the floor that Healthy Louisiana plans must pay. We track 9 plans in Louisiana; see the Louisiana managed care page.
Louisiana layers state directed payments on top of that floor, including the behavioral health directed payment programs CMS renewed for 2024 and 2025. For eligible providers, those payments add to what plans pay under the fee schedule.
None of the psychotherapy codes we track in Louisiana carries a prior-authorization rule or a published unit limit. That covers the diagnostic evaluation 90791, individual session codes, crisis codes, and family and group therapy.
For outpatient practices, the absence of fee-schedule authorization rules removes one step from intake. Plans may still apply medical-necessity review, so documentation should support each session billed. Practices that contract with several Healthy Louisiana plans should keep a simple matrix of each plan's review rules, since those rules, not the fee schedule, decide how quickly a new client can start treatment.
Louisiana leads the country on wraparound and trails it on service planning and residential care. Compare with Virginia, the second wraparound payer, Maryland, the top H0032 payer, and Nebraska, the lowest residential payer. Neighboring Texas and Arkansas are useful regional comparisons for community services.
Few states show a wider spread inside one schedule. Louisiana pays the most in the country for one community service and the least for another, with office therapy and residential care in between and below the median. A provider weighing Louisiana should therefore start from its own service mix rather than from any single headline figure. An agency built around intensive community wraparound will find Louisiana unusually attractive. A residential facility or an intake-heavy outpatient clinic will find it harder, and will lean on the state's low wage levels to make the numbers work.
The pace of change is the other factor. With three schedule editions since mid-2025, Louisiana rewards providers that review each new edition promptly and pass the changes through to budgets and plan contracts.
- Match claims to editions. Keep every Specialized Behavioral Health edition and bill by date of service.
- Re-check plan floors. After each new edition, confirm Healthy Louisiana contracts reflect the current minimum.
- Budget assessment as cost. Treat the $10.00 assessment and planning codes as overhead for the services that follow.
- Confirm wraparound eligibility. The H2021 rate depends on meeting the service definition and modifier combination.
Rates on this page are compiled from official Louisiana Medicaid publications, and each rate on our site links to its source document. Louisiana sources include the Specialized Behavioral Health fee schedule editions, the Louisiana Medicaid Professional Services Fee Schedule (PS_FS_Jan2026) and LDH informational bulletins. Our methodology explains how hourly rates and ranks are calculated.
All 68,506 current Louisiana Medicaid rates, across 121 service categories and history back to 1991, are on the Louisiana Medicaid rates page; 476 of them are in the behavioral health line. National medians are on the behavioral health Medicaid rates by state hub.