Therapy Medicaid rates in Kansas are close to the national median, and they all move together. Kansas Medicaid pays $99.16 an hour for physical therapy under code 97110, which ranks 20th of 49 states and is 3.2% above the national median of $96.04. The rate is $24.79 per 15-minute unit, effective 2024-08-01.
Every Kansas therapy rate on file shares that 2024-08-01 effective date. And unlike many states, Kansas keeps therapy outside its managed-care program: physical, occupational and speech therapy is paid directly by the state. That combination makes the published KMAP fee schedule the rate a Kansas therapy practice actually receives. All rates are compiled from official Kansas Medical Assistance Program (KMAP) publications, and the Kansas Medicaid rates hub links each to its source document.
| Service | Code | Kansas rate | Rank | vs national median |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Physical therapy | 97110 | $99.16/hour | 20 of 49 | +3.2% |
| Occupational therapy | 97530 | $102.92/hour | 28 of 48 | -6.9% |
| Speech-language therapy | 92507 | $62.61 | 19 of 39 | +1.6% |
| PT evaluation | 97163 | $76.93 | 26 of 46 | -5.9% |
| OT evaluation | 97166 | $81.19 | 25 of 46 | -1.5% |
| Speech-language evaluation | 92522 | $67.70 | 39 of 44 | -25.9% |
Five of the six rates sit within a few percent of their national medians. The outlier is the speech-language evaluation: at $67.70, it ranks 39th of 44 and sits 25.9% below the $91.32 median.
KMAP publishes its fee schedule as dated editions for each benefit program. Three schedules matter for most professional claims: the Title XIX Medicaid schedule, a schedule for Qualified Medicare Beneficiaries (QMB) and a schedule for MediKan, the state-funded medical program. The therapy rates on this page come from the Title XIX Medicaid edition dated 2024-08-01.
One edition, one date
Because the whole therapy schedule was reissued on the same date, a Kansas practice does not need to track a patchwork of code-by-code effective dates. Every claim for a date of service on or after 2024-08-01 prices against the same edition until KMAP publishes a new one.
Units and services
Physical and occupational therapy treatment codes such as 97110 and 97530 are timed and billed in 15-minute units; four units make the hourly figures above. Speech therapy under 92507 and the evaluations are priced per service, under the one-unit pricing rule described below.
Kansas pays $24.79 per unit of 97110, or $99.16 an hour. That is slightly above the national median, which places Kansas in the upper half of states for physical therapy without being among the leaders. For a practice, the rate is high enough to cover a therapist's wage with room to spare, as the labor section shows, but not so high that Medicaid becomes the preferred payer.
Occupational therapy under 97530 pays a little more per hour, $102.92, but because the national OT median is higher, Kansas OT ranks lower (28th of 48) than Kansas PT. Speech under 92507 lands just above its median. The overall picture is of a schedule priced close to the middle of the country on every treatment line.
The one service where Kansas falls well behind is the speech-language evaluation. At $67.70 for 92522, it is 25.9% below the national median and ranks 39th of 44. A speech-language evaluation can be one of the longest single encounters in a speech episode, so the low rate is felt directly in intake costs.
Speech practices can manage this in two ways. First, the treatment rate for 92507 is near the median, so the episode as a whole is more balanced than the evaluation alone suggests. Second, because the evaluation is priced as a single unit per line, there is no benefit in extending the evaluation beyond what the clinical question requires.
Kansas's managed-care program is KanCare, and for most service lines on file, including physician services, hospital outpatient care and home health, plans must pay at least the published rate. Therapy is handled differently. For physical, occupational and speech therapy, the rule on file is that the service is paid directly by the state, outside managed care.
For a therapy practice, that removes a layer of uncertainty. There is no plan contract to negotiate for therapy and no question of whether a plan pays above or below the fee schedule: the KMAP rate is the rate. Our data counts 7 plans and programs, including PACE organizations such as Bluestem PACE and Midland Care Connection. The Kansas managed-care page lists the plans on file.
What the carve-out means for billing
Claims for therapy go to the state rather than to a KanCare plan, so billing staff should route them accordingly even when the patient is a KanCare member. A therapy claim sent to a plan is likely to be denied or redirected, delaying payment.
Waiver services follow a different path
Kansas home- and community-based waivers, including the Brain Injury, Autism, Intellectual/Developmental Disability and Technology Assisted waivers, use rates set by the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services (KDADS) and paid by KanCare plans. Cognitive therapy under the Brain Injury Waiver is one example. A practice that delivers both state-plan therapy and waiver services to the same member will therefore bill two different payers under two different rate sources, and should keep the workflows separate.
Kansas therapy wages sit below the national medians. In May 2025, physical therapists earned a median $47.25 an hour against $49.40 nationally, occupational therapists $47.68 against $48.24, and speech-language pathologists $38.52 against $47.05. Physical therapist assistants earned $31.01 against $32.88, and occupational therapy assistants $31.26 against $34.76.
Median rates and below-median wages give Kansas practices workable margins:
- Physical therapy (97110): wages take 67.7% of the $99.16 hourly rate, leaving $32.00 an hour after a loaded wage.
- Occupational therapy (97530): wages take 65.8% of the $102.92 hourly rate, leaving $35.15.
The speech-language pathologist wage stands out. At $38.52, it is well below the national median, while the 92507 treatment rate sits slightly above the national median. Speech treatment is likely the best-margin service in the Kansas schedule, even though the speech evaluation is the worst-paid relative to other states.
Kansas coverage rules focus on how units are priced rather than on authorization. Codes 92507, 92521, 92522, 92523, 92524 and the PT and OT evaluation codes 97161 through 97168 each carry a per-line limit with the pricing method "Allow 1 unit." Codes 97110, 97112 and 97530 carry no limit on file, and none of the listed codes carries a prior-authorization rule.
For billing staff, the one-unit rule means the speech codes and the evaluations are paid as a single unit per claim line. Multiple units on a single line should not be expected to raise payment. The 15-minute PT and OT treatment codes, by contrast, are billed by time in the usual way.
Avoiding common billing errors
- Bill one unit per line for speech and evaluation codes.
- Bill timed PT and OT codes by the number of 15-minute units delivered.
- Do not expect a longer evaluation or speech session to pay more than one unit.
The recent changes on file concern waiver programs rather than the core therapy schedule. KMAP General Bulletin 26053 changed billing for cognitive therapy under the HCBS Brain Injury Waiver, effective 2026-05-01. An earlier bulletin, 25281, updated the cognitive therapy code for the same waiver; it was later reversed. KMAP General Bulletin 25122 announced an HCBS rate increase for fiscal year 2026, and a KDADS budget workbook set new Community Support Waiver rates from 10/1/26.
Therapy practices that also serve Brain Injury Waiver members should review both cognitive therapy bulletins, since that is the area where Kansas billing rules have changed most recently. For the core therapy schedule, the signal to watch is a new edition of the KMAP Title XIX fee schedule.
On physical therapy, Kansas's $99.16 trails Alaska ($176.68), New Mexico ($165.64), Texas ($135.00) and North Dakota ($129.16), but sits well above the bottom group of New Jersey ($58.80), California ($48.88) and Maine ($46.64). On speech, Nebraska, a neighbor, sits near the bottom at $20.57 for 92507, while Kansas is just above the median. Practices along the eastern border can compare Missouri therapy rates.
- Budgeting: use $99.16 an hour for PT and $102.92 for OT; both leave a margin in the low-to-mid $30s at median wages.
- Billing: route therapy claims to the state, not to KanCare plans, and apply the one-unit rule.
- Speech programs: plan intake around the low evaluation rate and rely on treatment visits for margin.
- Benchmarking: Kansas is a good proxy for a median-priced Medicaid therapy market.
Rates on this page are compiled from official KMAP publications, chiefly the KMAP Fee Schedule for Title XIX Medicaid dated 2024-08-01, along with KMAP general bulletins. Each rate links to its source document. Hourly figures convert 15-minute units to an hour; ranks compare the same service across states. Wages are May 2025 medians.
This page covers therapy only; the Kansas Medicaid rates hub covers all 76,901 current Kansas Medicaid rates across the Title XIX, QMB and MediKan schedules. See the national therapy rates hub, our methodology and pricing.