The American Medical Association (AMA) issues, copyrights, and maintains codes for reporting medical services and procedures for health insurance.
When health insurance began to cover applied behavior analysis (ABA) as a medically necessary treatment, billing codes specifically for ABA did not exist, resulting in inconsistent coding and reimbursement for these services.
The Association for Behavior Analysis International (ABAI) began working with AMA to embark on the formal process of submitting the first of several applications to develop billing codes designated for the various assessment and treatment components of evidence-based applied behavior analysis.