Autism-Therapy Firm That Was Paid $340,000 per Patient Is Barred From Medicaid

Indiana officials move to terminate Piece by Piece Autism Centers, cite federal pressure for crackdown after a Journal investigation

By Christopher Weaver of The WSJ. Excerpts:

"Indiana is barring one of the nation’s most expensive autism-therapy providers from billing the state’s Medicaid program two weeks after the company’s practices were detailed in a Wall Street Journal article, state officials said.

The autism-therapy provider, Piece by Piece Autism Centers, received the highest per-patient payments in the country in 2023—about $340,000 on average—according to a Journal analysis of Medicaid billing records.

Piece by Piece did so in part by raising its list prices to levels that allowed it to collect as much as $640 an hour from the state for services that could be performed by a high-school graduate. From 2019 to 2023, Indiana directly paid Piece by Piece $58 million for autism-therapy services, the billing records show."

"In letters sent to Piece by Piece this week, the state [Indiana] said it was revoking the company’s provider agreements for all seven of its centers."

The state "would bar the centers from billing Medicaid"

One official said "“There were no guardrails under the prior administration, and they weren’t doing the job of oversight they should have been doing." 

Related post:

The Boom in Autism Therapy Is Medicaid’s Fastest-Growing Jackpot: Some companies have found lucrative opportunities to capitalize on a growing need, billing long hours and extracting payments as high as $800 an hour (2026)