Medicaid spending on ABA therapy
CMS reports $10.11 billion in Medicaid and CHIP payments for ABA services in 2025. Compare the national series and reported state totals.
Reported ABA payments rose from $1.94B to $10.11B
US dollars, billions
CMS national totals, Medicaid and CHIP, 2021–2025. Includes reported managed-care amounts.
More spending, more people receiving services
The workbook puts the 2021 total at $1.94 billion. Four years later it reaches $10.11 billion. Over that period, the number of people receiving these services goes from 101,692 to 304,894.
That is a spending series, not an outcome study. It cannot tell us whether a child learned a new skill, whether a family found care sooner, or how much a provider spent delivering it.
The $53 row in Florida
Florida's 2021 cell caught our attention: $53. The later figures run into billions. A growth calculation using those two cells would be spectacular, but it would also be a poor description of what happened.
The footnotes identify minimal claims reporting in early years for several states. We kept the original values in the download and left out a growth leaderboard. Read the baseline note before using any of those states as an example of rising spending.
What this data cannot tell you
- These figures are reported paid amounts, not approved budgets or families' bills.
- CMS notes minimal early claims for Florida, Texas, Idaho, Illinois, and Rhode Island in some baseline years.
- Do not compare these calendar-year totals directly with state fiscal-year budgets.
- The public HHS provider spending file has a different construction and suppression rules. Its smaller total is not used here as a substitute for the CMS national series.
How this report was built
We used Table 3 of the August 2026 workbook for the national series and Table 9 for the geographic table. The import checks each exported dollar amount against its worksheet cell. The chart displays dollars in billions. Blank cells stay blank in the CSV.
Underlying research files were retrieved on October 12, 2026. The website release was checked against those saved source versions on October 13. Live source pages may change after that date.
Read the publication methodCite this report
Autism Stats. Medicaid spending on ABA therapy. Version 1.0, October 13, 2026. https://autismstats.com/statistics/medicaid-aba-spending
When quoting a figure, include the population and collection year. Link to the original source as well when your publication requires it.