Entity and Ownership · Fixed Scope

The answer forks before it begins.

Practices with in-house diagnosticians (a psychologist or physician) and ABA-only practices face different structures, licensing, and Medicaid paths. Every question about entity, ownership, or a management company starts by deciding which one you are.

You get a structure roadmap and a briefing for your counsel, who advises on the law and papers the documents.

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Roadmap
Your structure, in order
Briefing
Ready for your counsel
Cited
Every position to primary law
Two paths
In-house diagnostics or ABA-only

The moment general guidance runs out.

The deadline

It may or may not reach you

Illinois requires every owner of an ABA business to hold a behavior analyst license, with a divestment deadline of January 15, 2027. Whether that touches your structure is a question with a date attached.

The inheritance

You do not know what you bought

You acquired a practice, or you were advised by someone who did not know ABA. You would rather find out now than when a buyer does.

The change

An owner joins, or a management company arrives

Adding an owner or building an MSO is where a structure that worked quietly stops working.

What you get.

01

A structure roadmap

Entity, ownership, and management arrangement laid out for your states and your facts, with the reasoning shown and every position cited to primary law.

02

A briefing for your counsel

The question framed and the research done, so your legal engagement is spent on the questions that need a lawyer. Your counsel advises on the law and papers the documents.

03

The bad news, if there is any

If you are fine, you get that, plus what would have to change for you to stop being fine. If you have a problem, you get the problem, the options, and what each one costs you.

04

A fixed scope

Agreed before anything starts. No meter running. If the work is bigger than the question, I say so before I begin, not halfway through.

Where it fits.

The research is published free, state by state. Read it in this order.

Start hereHow the two kinds of practice differWhether you diagnose in house decides which structure, licensing, and Medicaid path applies, so it comes before every other question.
The decisionThe entity decisionLLC or PLLC, state by state, with the statute behind each answer.
The structurePLLC and entity structuresThe entity options in each state and what each one allows.
The management companyOwnership and management companiesWho may own what, and what a management company can and cannot do, state by state.
The forkThe diagnostician questionWhat changes when a psychologist or physician diagnoses in your practice, state by state.
The licenseLicensing rules, by stateWhich credential a state requires decides who can supervise and bill.
Live deadlineIllinois requires every ABA owner to be a licensed analyst, or divest by January 2027The divestment deadline is January 15, 2027.

To see what is exposed in your current structure first, a compliance audit comes before the decision. If you read it all and still cannot tell what applies to you, that is where the question became yours.

Matthew Shatzkes, Partner, Bochner

Entity Structuring in ABA Factors & Considerations with Matthew Shatzkes Partner Bochner

Feb 24, 2026
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What are you trying to decide?

Tell me the question and the situation. I will tell you whether it is one I can answer and what it takes, before anything starts.

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Engagements are business and compliance advisory, delivered alongside your counsel, who provides legal advice. Nothing here is legal advice. No engagement creates an attorney-client relationship.