A diagnosing physician or psychologist can be employed inside the ABA entity; only a control restriction and a single-discipline rule if a professional corporation is elected apply. Clean: ownership stays open.
Who may give the diagnosis in Utah
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 Utah treats psychology and medicine ownership
Utah does not enforce a strict corporate-practice doctrine. By statute a physician may practice as an employee of another person or through a lawfully organized business corporation of any ownership, and the professional-entity form is elective. The same permissive posture covers psychologists, who are an enumerated professional service.
What bringing the diagnostician in-house does
A diagnosing physician or psychologist can be employed inside the ABA entity; only a control restriction and a single-discipline rule if a professional corporation is elected apply. Clean: ownership stays open.
How to structure it in Utah
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 Utah code, the applicable federal safe harbor, and qualified healthcare-regulatory and tax counsel are the authoritative sources.