Press Information & Media Contact

CMS's State Medicaid and CHIP ABA Toolkit reports that between 2021 and 2025, children with an autism diagnosis receiving ABA services rose 189% while ABA spending rose 421% — $1.94 billion to $10.1 billion. Applying those figures, spending per child rose roughly 80%; CMS separately reports weekly hours per child rose 22%. The disproportion is documented; its cause is not. CMS also states that no ABA-specific quality measurements exist and that accreditation is not a proxy for quality.

CASP is a 501(c)(6) trade association whose tax status permits substantial lobbying and activities advancing the common business interests of its members. It is not a 501(c)(3) public charity. Its advocacy is entirely proper. The distinction matters because the constituency it represents is provider organizations, not clinicians, scientists, consumers, or the profession as a whole.

As of the date of this statement, every member of CASP's Board of Directors simultaneously holds an executive leadership role at a CASP member organization. There are no independent board members. This is documented on casproviders.org/staff-and-board.

CASP describes ACQ on its own website as "a wholly-owned subsidiary of CASP." CASP's CEO publicly stated in early 2026 that ACQ "wouldn't have been able to make ends meet" without CASP's direct financial support, and ACQ's own standards manual states that it shares CASP's tax status and receives financial, staffing, and in-kind support from CASP. Independence is asserted; dependence is stated alongside it.

CASP's own advocacy page — casproviders.org/advocacy — explicitly identifies mandatory RBT enrollment requirements in Indiana Medicaid as a named policy barrier CASP deployed lobbyists to defeat. This is CASP's own published documentation.

CASP fully acquired Jade Health — parent company of BHCOE and the National Autism Data Registry — consolidating two accreditation programs and a national patient-level data repository under a single trade association. BHCOE accreditations are being transitioned into ACQ.

Per research published in JAMA Pediatrics (January 2026), private equity firms have acquired more than 500 autism therapy centers over the past decade. Between 2017–2022, PE completed 85% of all M&A in autism services — a rate not found in any other healthcare sector (Cornell/CEPR).