Rehabs That Take Texas CHIP

What Is Texas CHIP?

Texas CHIP is a separate Children’s Health Insurance Program run by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission with federal matching funds, delivered by contracted managed care plans. It covers children 18 and younger who are Texas residents and US citizens or qualified non-citizens, and the state reported CHIP-funded coverage for 637 thousand Texas children in federal fiscal year 2024.

The benefit includes access to medical specialists and mental health care alongside check-ups, immunizations, prescriptions, dental, vision, hospital care, lab work and emergency services. Texas does not operate a Medicaid expansion for adults, so a parent’s own coverage is a separate question from a child’s CHIP enrollment, and families often find that the child has mental health treatment coverage while the adult in the household does not.

Who Runs It

CHIP has no parent company. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, inside the US Department of Health and Human Services, sets the federal rules, and the Texas Health and Human Services Commission writes the state program and holds the health plan contracts. The state enrollment broker takes plan choices on 1-800-964-2777 or 1-877-782-6440, and the CHIP hotline is listed as 877-543-7669 and 800-647-6558.

CHIP and CHIP Perinate

The program runs in two forms. CHIP covers a child 18 and under directly. CHIP Perinate, also called CHIP Perinatal, covers an unborn child, which is how prenatal and newborn care reaches a family that does not qualify for Medicaid. Plan material for the perinatal line rarely itemizes behavioral health, so a pregnant member should ask her plan what transfers once the baby is enrolled.

Which Health Plans and Service Areas Does Texas CHIP Cover?

Texas CHIP is sold statewide, but through different plans in each of the thirteen service areas. The health plans named on the state map dated January 8, 2026 are Aetna, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, Community First, Community Health Choice, Cook Children’s, Dell Children’s, Driscoll, El Paso Health, FirstCare, Molina, Parkland, Superior, Texas Children’s, UnitedHealthcare and Wellpoint.

Those names are not interchangeable. Superior HealthPlan is part of Centene, Aetna Better Health belongs to CVS Health and Wellpoint is Elevance, while Community First, Cook Children’s, Driscoll, Texas Children’s Health Plan, El Paso Health and Parkland are local or hospital-sponsored plans. A plan’s size tells a family nothing useful about its network in one county; the plan’s own directory does.

Which Plan Serves My Service Area?

On the January 8, 2026 map, CHIP in Bexar lists Aetna, Community First, Superior and Wellpoint; Dallas lists Molina, Parkland and Wellpoint; Harris and Jefferson list Community Health Choice, Molina, Texas Children’s, UnitedHealthcare and Wellpoint; Tarrant lists Aetna, Cook Children’s and Wellpoint; Travis lists Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas, Superior and Dell Children’s.

The remaining areas follow the same pattern. El Paso lists El Paso Health and Superior; Hidalgo lists Superior and Molina; Lubbock lists FirstCare and Superior; Nueces lists Driscoll, Superior and UnitedHealthcare; and the three rural service areas, known as MRSA Central, Northeast and West, list Molina and Superior. UnitedHealthcare’s own Texas CHIP footprint is narrower than its Medicaid one, covering Harris, Jefferson and Nueces.

Behavioral Health Inside the Plan

Texas carves behavioral health into the health plan rather than into a separate state system, but each plan staffs it differently. Optum manages behavioral health for UnitedHealthcare’s Texas CHIP, STAR, STAR+PLUS and STAR Kids lines, including authorization and claims. Aetna routes behavioral calls through its member line around the clock, and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Texas takes CHIP behavioral requests on its own Medicaid line, 1-877-560-8055.

Does Texas CHIP Cover Drug and Alcohol Rehab?

Yes. A separate CHIP has to cover services that prevent, diagnose and treat a broad range of mental health symptoms and disorders, substance use disorders among them, under the federal SUPPORT Act from October 24, 2019. Texas CHIP names mental health care in its benefits, and the Texas plans publish authorization lists that reach every level of addiction treatment.

Those authorization lists are the clearest published evidence of what the program pays for. One Texas CHIP plan’s list names detox, residential substance use treatment, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient treatment and inpatient mental health and substance use care as services it reviews, which means they sit inside the benefit rather than outside it. A plan in the Houston area describes its CHIP coverage as including detoxification, twenty-four-hour residential rehabilitation and intensive outpatient treatment.

Federal guidance itself names no levels of care. It requires only that a state show its benefit array is wide enough for a broad range of behavioral health symptoms and disorders, that any amount, duration or scope limit can be exceeded where medically necessary, and that behavioral health limits are no tighter than the limits on medical and surgical care. That parity test reaches copays, service caps and the medical necessity criteria, so a quoted cap on an intensive outpatient program is a starting point for a conversation with the plan.

Does Texas CHIP Need Prior Authorization for Rehab?

Yes, for the higher levels of care. One Texas CHIP authorization list in force from January 1, 2026 requires it for inpatient mental health and substance use care, residential treatment, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient treatment, alcohol and drug detox and psychological testing. An out-of-network provider has to obtain authorization before delivering any behavioral service.

The rule is written by the plan, not by Washington, so the list differs from one Texas plan to the next and is revised each year. Federal guidance names The ASAM Criteria, the Child and Adolescent Service Intensity Instrument and the Child and Adolescent Needs and Strengths tool as examples of how a behavioral health level of care may be decided for a child. The practical step is to ask the admissions team to file the request and to ask the plan how long a decision takes.

Texas CHIP pharmacy follows the state Vendor Drug Program preferred drug list rather than a plan’s own formulary, with clinical authorization applied to the drugs the state flags and a seventy-two-hour emergency supply available for a non-preferred or authorization-pending medicine. Federal CHIP rules require medication assisted treatment for opioid use disorder as clinically appropriate for a child, naming no individual drug.

How Much Does Rehab Cost With Texas CHIP?

Texas CHIP charges an enrollment fee of $50 or less per family per year. Copays on doctor visits and medicine run $3 to $5 for lower-income families and $20 to $35 for higher-income families, one Texas plan lists CHIP drug copays as usually $3 or less, and total cost sharing is generally capped at 5% of annual family income. Well-child visits carry nothing.

That is the member’s side. The table below is what a program charges in the open market before any coverage applies, which is the figure a family meets only where the treatment sits outside the plan.

Across the states the middle half of medical detox prices runs $1,540 to $5,600 a week and the middle half of residential prices runs $6,000 to $30,000 a month. CHIP and Medicaid pay contracted state rates instead, Medicare pays its own schedule, a private plan applies a deductible and coinsurance, and self-pay is where the sticker price is met directly.

Why the Copay Band Matters

The gap between the $3 to $5 band and the $20 to $35 band is income, and it applies per visit, so a child attending a structured outpatient schedule several times a week in the higher band can reach the annual 5% ceiling faster than a family expects. Ask the plan how the ceiling is tracked and what proof of reaching it looks like.

How Do I Find a Rehab That Takes Texas CHIP?

Start with the plan on the child’s card, since there is no single Texas CHIP network: call its member services number, ask for a contracted adolescent substance use program in your service area, and ask the admissions team which Texas license it treats minors under. The state enrollment broker on 1-800-964-2777 will say which plans your area offers if you are still choosing.

Two checks save time later. Confirm with the plan that the program is in network for CHIP specifically, because a plan’s Medicaid and CHIP networks are contracted separately, and ask who files the authorization request. Where the nearest suitable program sits outside the service area, ask how an out-of-area request is handled before anyone books travel, since out-of-network care needs authorization in advance on the Texas lists.

Programs that accept this coverage are gathered on the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) page, with related pages for inpatient rehab and CARF accredited rehab. Each listing shows the levels of care a program offers, the payments it says it accepts, licensing and accreditation shown where The Joint Commission or CARF lists the facility, and how far the site sits from the nearest airport.

Is Texas CHIP the Same as Texas Medicaid?

No. They are separate programs that share an application and, in Texas, share most of the same health plans. Texas Medicaid runs as STAR for children and pregnant women, STAR+PLUS for adults with disabilities or aged 65 and over, STAR Kids for members 20 and younger with disabilities, and STAR Health statewide for children in foster care. CHIP sits beside them for children above the Medicaid income line.

The difference shows up in the detail. Medicaid children get the state’s full child benefit package, including the early and periodic screening and treatment entitlement for under-21s, and generally face no enrollee charges; CHIP children get a state-designed package with the enrollment fee and copays above. One state application decides which of the two a child lands in, and a change in family income can move a child between them at renewal, which is why the plan card is worth rechecking before an admission.

References and Citations

• Texas Health and Human Services Commission — CHIP and Medicaid managed care service area map dated January 8, 2026, with program definitions, the enrollment broker and health plan contact listings.
• Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services — CHIP cost sharing and eligibility rules, program design options, and the state health official letter on required behavioral health and medication treatment benefits.
• Texas CHIP health plan materials — 2026 behavioral health prior authorization lists, member and nurse line numbers, pharmacy rules under the state Vendor Drug Program, and published CHIP benefit summaries.
• MACPAC — CHIP-funded enrollment by state for federal fiscal year 2024 and program design classifications.
• RehabSeekers directory listings and market rate research, United States, 2026. Ranges are indicative and vary by facility, length of stay and coverage.