A diagnosing psychologist or physician can be employed inside the ABA entity of any ownership. Clean: ownership stays open.
Who may give the diagnosis in Arizona
The medical-necessity diagnosis is made by a licensed physician or a licensed psychologist. A BCBA may not diagnose ASD, so the diagnostician you would bring in-house is a psychologist or a physician, and both are professions the state may treat differently from behavior analysis.
How Arizona treats psychology and medicine ownership
A 2022 Arizona statute lets any health professional practice through, or be employed by, any form of business entity, and the definition of health professional reaches both psychologists and physicians. Optometry is the lone carve-out.
What bringing the diagnostician in-house does
A diagnosing psychologist or physician can be employed inside the ABA entity of any ownership. Clean: ownership stays open.
How to structure it in Arizona
Because the diagnostician can be employed inside an ordinary entity, the simplest structure is a bona fide W-2 employee inside your ABA entity, which also removes the cross-entity referral that would otherwise raise the federal Anti-Kickback Statute. The framework and the alternatives are set out in the diagnostician question hub.
The corporate-practice, professional-entity, and anti-kickback rules summarized here are amended and reinterpreted, and verbatim text is a starting point rather than a conclusion. The official Arizona code, the applicable federal safe harbor, and qualified healthcare-regulatory and tax counsel are the authoritative sources.