The five rows below carry the operative statutory language verbatim, each quote pulled from the official code. This page is one state from the full state-by-state reference. Nothing here is legal, tax, or financial advice.
The five-part test in brief
Whether an ABA practice needs a professional entity is a stack of five questions. The licensing act is the gateway, because an unlicensed profession is generally not a professional service and an ordinary entity governs. The professional-entity statute supplies the form and the ownership rule that applies if that form is used. The scope definition decides whether ABA is actually inside that statute. The corporate-practice doctrine, a separate body of law that often lives in the medical practice act or case law rather than the entity statute, is usually what forces licensed ownership and pushes outside capital into a management company. And the fee-splitting and anti-remuneration rules constrain management-fee economics even where ownership is open. The rows below run those five against this state's actual code, quoting the operative language so the position rests on the statute.
Indiana, provision by provision
Indiana
Ownership open; professional corporation electiveHolding: a non-licensee may wholly own a standard Indiana LLC or corporation that delivers ABA. The professional corporation form exists but is optional, and even where chosen, only one shareholder must be Indiana-licensed. SEA 9's transaction-notice requirement is a deal-process obligation, not an ownership bar.
Yes. IC 25-8.5 licenses Licensed Behavior Analysts and Licensed Assistant Behavior Analysts, administered by the Behavior Analyst Licensing Board with an advisory Behavior Analyst Committee, both within the Indiana Professional Licensing Agency. The statute was added in 2021, but the Board's application infrastructure did not become operational until May 13, 2025.
Conclusion. ABA is a licensed profession in Indiana, the gateway for the entity questions below, though as the next axis shows, the gateway carries no mandatory entity form.
A professional entity is not required. IC 23-1.5-2-3(a) provides that one or more health care professionals "may" form a professional corporation, permissive language, not a mandate, and nothing in Indiana law bars an ordinary LLC or business corporation from rendering ABA services instead. Where a professional corporation is used, the ownership rule is unusually light: only one shareholder must be licensed in Indiana, and a second shareholder licensed in another state to render similar services is separately permitted, with no requirement that all, or even a majority, of shareholders hold an Indiana behavior-analyst license.
Conclusion. No professional entity is required for ABA in Indiana, and even where the professional corporation form is elected, its ownership rule requires only one Indiana-licensed shareholder rather than licensee-majority or licensee-only ownership.
The professional corporation form reaches ABA through Indiana's general "health care professional" category rather than a behavior-analyst-specific provision. Because IC 23-1.5-2-3(a)(4) covers "services that may legally be performed only by a health care professional," and a licensed behavior analyst qualifies as a health care professional performing services requiring that license, the professional corporation form is available to Indiana behavior analysts. Availability, however, is not the same as a requirement, as the prior axis established.
Conclusion. ABA qualifies for the elective professional-corporation form under the general health care professional category; the form is available, not mandatory.
Ownership. No ownership-by-law rule restricts who may hold equity in an Indiana ABA practice. IC 25-8.5 regulates individual practitioner licensure, not business-entity ownership, and Indiana has not extended a corporate-practice-of-medicine doctrine to reach behavior analysis specifically. A non-licensee may wholly own a standard Indiana LLC or corporation employing licensed behavior analysts.
Clinical control. Because ownership is unrestricted at the entity level, clinical control rests with the licensed individuals under their own professional and supervisory obligations under IC 25-8.5, not with an ownership rule. Where a professional corporation is elected, even that form's single-Indiana-shareholder floor leaves substantial room for outside, non-licensee ownership of the remaining shares.
Conclusion. A non-licensee may wholly own a standard Indiana LLC or corporation that delivers ABA, and even a professional corporation election leaves the ownership rule light, requiring only one Indiana-licensed shareholder.
No broad Indiana fee-splitting statute specific to behavior analysts was identified in this review. Any ABA practice billing Indiana Medicaid or commercial insurers remains fully subject to the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark self-referral rules regardless of state law. Separately, and distinctly from fee-splitting, SEA 9 requires 90 days' advance written notice to the Indiana Attorney General for a merger or acquisition involving an Indiana health care entity with total combined assets of at least $10 million, effective July 1, 2024, and expressly reaching private equity firms as qualifying parties.
Conclusion. A management agreement should be priced at fair market value to satisfy the federal anti-kickback framework; Indiana adds no identified broad state fee-splitting bar for ABA, but a qualifying merger or acquisition above the $10 million asset threshold triggers SEA 9's 90-day Attorney General notice requirement regardless of the fee-splitting question.
ABA is a licensed profession in Indiana (axis one), but the professional corporation form under IC 23-1.5 is elective, and even when used, requires only one Indiana-licensed shareholder rather than licensee-majority ownership (axes two and three). No corporate-practice doctrine or ownership-by-law rule reaches ABA beyond that light professional-corporation floor, so a non-licensee may wholly own a standard Indiana LLC or corporation (axis four). No identified state fee-splitting statute constrains ABA specifically, though the federal anti-kickback framework applies in full, and SEA 9's 90-day transaction-notice requirement is a separate deal-process obligation triggered by size, not by ownership structure (axis five). Therefore ownership in Indiana is open, and the state's most significant recent regulatory development is a transaction-notice law, not an entity-ownership restriction.
Outlook: how this verdict could change
Likelihood of change: Low. Indiana has trended toward transaction-level oversight (SEA 9) rather than entity-ownership restriction, and no ABA-specific ownership bill has been identified. The professional-corporation statute's light single-shareholder rule has been stable.
What to watch. Any amendment to IC 23-1.5-2-3 tightening the professional-corporation ownership floor, any expansion of SEA 9's scope or lowered asset threshold, and continued maturation of the Behavior Analyst Licensing Board's rules following its 2025 launch.
Disruption if it changes: Low. A realistic change would most likely extend SEA 9's transaction-notice framework further rather than impose a new entity-ownership restriction, so existing entity structures would likely carry over even as deal-process obligations grow.
Where professional advice is essential, not optional
Verbatim statutory text is a starting point, not a conclusion. Statutes are amended, agencies issue rules that fill them in, and courts interpret them. Indiana's combination of open ownership and a genuinely new, broad transaction-notice law is an easy pairing to get backwards, treating SEA 9 as an ownership restriction when it is a notice obligation, or assuming the $10 million threshold is Indiana-revenue-specific when it is not. Use this page to locate the operative provisions and to speak from the source, then confirm the current text and citations against the official code and engage qualified Indiana counsel before acting. Nothing here is legal, tax, or financial advice.
The provisions quoted here change and are interpreted by agencies and courts, and Indiana's SEA 9 transaction-notice framework is recent, effective since July 1, 2024, and was itself amended in 2025. The official Indiana code and qualified Indiana counsel are the authoritative sources. Neither this page nor any secondary source should be relied on in place of direct verification and professional advice.