California Regional Centers Now Pay Behavior Vendors by the Mile for Excess Driving

California's Department of Developmental Services now lets regional-center behavior vendors bill by the mile when their staff drive more than the rate model assumes. Directive D-2025-Rate Reform-007REV, issued July 27, 2026, added service codes 612, 613, 615, 616 and 620 to an excess-mileage payment that had covered only early intervention, therapy and respite. Payment starts in the month your regional center approves you, not before.

Why the approval date matters

The directive says that "following regional center approval, vendors may begin billing for excessive mileage for the time period beginning with the calendar month of the regional center's approval." Nothing reaches back. An agency that has been driving long routes since the directive came out, and hasn't applied, has already lost those months. Every month it waits loses another.

On September 16, a second directive, D-2026-Rates-007, raised the mileage figure built into the rate models from $0.725 to $0.76 a mile, effective July 1, 2026. It said regional centers "must implement the new posted rates." DDS posted the new rate files on September 23 and 24.

How it works

• Who qualifies: excess is judged per vendor and per staff category. DDS compares the miles funded through paid claims, at the rate model's assumption, with the miles that category of staff actually drove. Behavior analysts and behavior technicians get separate determinations.
• The worksheet: the regional center gives qualifying vendors DDS's Excessive Mileage Cost Calculator. It asks for vendor number, regional center, service code, discipline, month and year, billed hours across the staff group, and actual miles driven. The regional center verifies the data and pays one monthly amount per service and subcode.
• Billing: the second position of the subcode becomes "T." For 1:1 services that's subcode 1T0.
• Per-mile rates from July 1, 2026 (full rate): code 612, Behavior Analyst, is $3.07 at South Central Los Angeles and San Diego regional centers and $2.97 at Redwood Coast and Far Northern. Code 616, Behavior Technician-Paraprofessional, runs $1.93 to $1.97 across the same four. At South Central LA, 613 and 615 are $2.00 and 620 is $2.11. Rates at 90% of full rate are lower, for example $2.76 for 612 at South Central LA.

The limits

This covers regional-center vendors under DDS, not Medi-Cal behavioral health treatment billed to a managed care plan. Many California ABA agencies hold both, and only the regional-center side is affected. Rates differ by regional center, so check yours in the DDS "rates only" file rather than assuming the figures above. The September directive doesn't say how a regional center will correct claims it paid between July 1 and posting the new rates.

What you must know or do

• Owners and billers: for each regional center you vendor with, total last month's actual miles for analysts and, separately, for technicians. Total the billed hours for each group. Those are the worksheet's inputs.
• Ask each regional center for the Excessive Mileage Cost Calculator this month. If you qualify, approval this month means billing from this month.
• Pull a 612 claim and a 616 claim with dates of service after July 1 and compare what you were paid with the July 1 hourly rate in your regional center's file. At South Central LA, 612 is $141.11 an hour at full rate. If you were paid less, ask the regional center how it will correct it.