Rehabs That Take Texas Medicaid

Rehabs That Take Texas Medicaid: Our Campuses

These campuses hold contracts with the Texas Medicaid plans listed. Several cover only certain levels of care, such as detox, so admissions checks your plan and the level of care you need on one call.

Call 855-520-2898 Verify your benefits

Checked against our contract list on September 25, 2026. Plans change; admissions confirms coverage before you travel.

Yes. Substance use treatment is part of what Texas Medicaid pays for, and in this state there is a second door worth knowing about before you spend a week on hold with the first one.

Texas runs its Medicaid coverage through managed care plans, and it separately runs a screening and referral service through local authorities that exists whatever your coverage looks like. Our admissions team can also check your benefits in one call, which is usually faster than either.

Below: who qualifies, what the two doors are, which tiers of care get funded, and what is left if the answer is no. If you hold commercial coverage instead, start with whether insurance covers rehab.

Texas Medicaid: What It Is and Who Qualifies in Texas

Most Texas Medicaid services are delivered through health plans, and the state lists its Medicaid programs as STAR, STAR Kids, STAR Health and STAR+PLUS [1]. The same page adds that anyone not enrolled in one of those programs may have Traditional Medicaid [1].

Those are not tiers of generosity. They are different programs for different populations, and which one you are in changes the plan you call and the rules that plan works to. Knowing the name before you dial is worth ten minutes of reading.

Eligibility is decided by the state on its own rules, and no article can settle it for you. Apply and let the commission answer. An application is also how you find out which program you belong to.

Substance Use Treatment Under Texas Medicaid, and the Other Door

Two routes exist here, and most people only ever hear about one.

The first is your managed care plan. Whichever of the three programs you are in, the plan named on your card is where to ask about an authorization for a level of care, and its member services line is where the specific questions belong. Put it to that line directly: who authorizes substance use treatment for this member? That is the answer no page can give you.

The second route is the state’s own screening and referral network. The Texas Health and Human Services Commission publishes both pieces of it on one page: Outreach, Screening, Assessment and Referral services, and a way to find your local mental health or behavioral health authority [2]. The same page carries the state crisis lines and a list of the adult substance use services Texas funds [2].

Why that matters practically. An assessment through the state route produces the same thing a plan assessment produces, which is a written clinical recommendation, and that document is what every later conversation turns on. If your plan call is going nowhere, this is not a consolation prize. It is a parallel path to the same paperwork.

Our levels of care explainer gives you the vocabulary for either call.

Which Levels of Care Are Realistically Funded, and Which Are Not

Screening, counseling, outpatient treatment, intensive outpatient and partial hospitalization are separate tiers, and what a plan needs before it will authorize each of them is a question for that plan. Ask, and write the answer down with the date.

Withdrawal management is the tier where the stakes run highest and the arguments run longest. SAMHSA’s detox protocol rests the choice of setting on safety and humanitarian grounds. For three withdrawal syndromes in particular, alcohol, sedative-hypnotic and opioid, it names hospital care or some other form of round-the-clock medical care as generally the preferred place for it [3]. “Generally” is the protocol’s own word and it describes the usual case, not a promise about you. Quote it accurately anyway if a plan offers something lighter.

Residential care runs into a federal payment rule, set out two sections below. None of it turns on urgency, which is the part that is hardest to sit with.

If someone is having a seizure, is unresponsive or has trouble breathing, call 911. For a mental-health crisis call or text 988.

Managed Care Plans, and Finding Out Which One Holds Your Benefit

Look at the card first. It names one of the programs the state lists: STAR, STAR Kids, STAR Health or STAR+PLUS [1]. If none of those appears, you may have Traditional Medicaid instead [1]. Where a program is named, a plan name sits underneath it. Both matter, because the program sets the rules and the plan applies them.

Ask the plan four things and write down the answers with the date and the name of the person who gave them. Does this plan authorize substance use treatment directly? What level of care is approved, and for how many days at a time? Who asks for more days once treatment starts, and on what schedule? And if you refuse, what is the appeal route and the deadline?

The last one is the question people forget and the one that changes results. An appeal rests on the written assessment, so keep it whatever happens next.

If that call stalls, use the other door. The state’s screening and referral service and the local authority finder are both published by the commission [2], and neither begins by asking what your card says. Our page on how admission works shows where each step falls in the sequence.

The IMD Exclusion, and Why Residential Beds Are Scarce

This one is federal, it bites in every state, and it explains bed scarcity better than anything happening in Austin.

The regulation Medicaid works to defines an institution for mental diseases by size and purpose: more than 16 beds, primarily engaged in providing diagnosis, treatment or care of persons with mental diseases [4]. It adds that the label follows the character of the place rather than its paperwork, so a facility can fall inside the definition whether or not it is licensed as one [4].

The payment bar sits in a second regulation, and its scope is narrower than the word adults. Federal financial participation is not available for services provided to individuals under age 65 who are patients in an institution for mental diseases, unless they are under age 22 and are receiving inpatient psychiatric services [11]. That is one reason residential and inpatient care can come back approved for fewer days than a clinician asked for. A short approval can be a funding rule speaking rather than an opinion about you.

When Texas Medicaid Is Not a Route to Our Texas Campuses, and What Is

We run three campuses in this state and they do not all carry the same levels of care, so the nearest one and the right one are sometimes different questions.

Promises Brazos Valley in College Station is about 79 miles northwest of Houston, 89 miles east of Austin and 155 miles from Dallas in a straight line. Its own page cards medical detox, residential rehab for substance abuse, residential rehab for mental health, partial hospitalization programming, intensive outpatient programming and aftercare planning [5], and it writes that intensive outpatient card as in-person and virtual [5]. The Right Step Houston is about nine miles from the center of Houston and cards medical detox, residential rehab for substance abuse, partial hospitalization programming, intensive outpatient programming and aftercare planning [6]; its intensive outpatient card says virtual, and its what-to-expect page lists virtual intensive outpatient treatment for Texas residents [12]. Promises Dallas-Fort Worth is in Lewisville, about 18 miles from Dallas, and cards medical detox, residential rehab for substance abuse, residential rehab for mental health, intensive outpatient programming and aftercare planning [7]; that intensive outpatient card says virtual too, its what-to-expect page lists virtual intensive outpatient treatment for Texas residents, and the campus writes there that it does not currently offer an on-site partial hospitalization program [13].

Ask admissions which of the three fits the level you have been recommended before you fix on the closest. Our treatment center directory sets out our campuses by state, and the levels each one runs are on that campus’s own page; our list of our campuses covers the other states.

Whether a given campus is funded under the plan you hold is a question for that plan and for admissions. We make no coverage claim here about any individual policy.

Marketplace, Employer and Self-Pay Alternatives

Texas does not run its own health insurance exchange. CMS’s list for plan year 2026 names 21 state-based exchanges plus three operating on the federal platform, and Texas appears on neither [8], so Marketplace coverage here is bought through HealthCare.gov.

What such a plan owes you is set in Washington rather than Austin. Mental and behavioral health services are essential health benefits, so every Marketplace plan has to include psychotherapy and counseling, inpatient mental and behavioral health services, and treatment for substance use disorder [9]. Refusing you, or pricing you higher, because of a pre-existing condition is not allowed, and a substance use disorder is a pre-existing condition like any other [9]. Neither is a yearly or lifetime dollar cap on an essential health benefit [9]. What you actually get still varies by state and by the plan you pick [9].

Parity law adds a further layer. Under the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act, a plan that covers mental health and substance use care may not apply harsher limits to it than it applies to medical and surgical care, and that reaches prior authorization and step therapy as well as visit and day caps [10]. The scope is worth knowing: it applies to non-federal governmental plans with more than 50 employees, to group health plans of private employers with more than 50 employees, and to the individual market [10]. Plans from small employers are not covered directly; they get comparable protection through the Affordable Care Act’s essential health benefits requirement.

On employer coverage, our Cigna guide lists the questions worth asking. Paying privately is the third route; the ranges we stand behind are on our rehab cost page, which puts basic residential treatment at $2,000 to $20,000 and prices medical detox by the day rather than by the program.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

1. Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Medicaid and CHIP Members. State of Texas. https://www.hhs.texas.gov/services/health/medicaid-chip/medicaid-chip-members
2. Texas Health and Human Services Commission. Mental Health and Substance Use. State of Texas. https://www.hhs.texas.gov/services/mental-health-substance-use
3. Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. Detoxification and Substance Abuse Treatment, Chapter 4: Physical Detoxification Services for Withdrawal From Specific Substances. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK64116/
4. Legal Information Institute. 42 CFR 435.1010 — Definitions relating to institutional status. Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/42/435.1010
5. Promises Behavioral Health. Promises Brazos Valley — Levels of Care. Advanced Recovery Systems. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/locations/promises-brazos-valley/
6. The Right Step. The Right Step Houston — Levels of Care. Advanced Recovery Systems. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/locations/the-right-step-houston/
7. Promises Behavioral Health. Promises Dallas-Fort Worth — Levels of Care. Advanced Recovery Systems. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/locations/promises-dallas-fort-worth/
8. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight. State-based Exchanges for Plan Year 2026. https://www.cms.gov/cciio/resources/fact-sheets-and-faqs/state-marketplaces
9. HealthCare.gov. Mental Health and Substance Abuse Coverage. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. https://www.healthcare.gov/coverage/mental-health-substance-abuse-coverage/
10. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). https://www.cms.gov/marketplace/private-health-insurance/mental-health-parity-addiction-equity
11. Legal Information Institute. 42 CFR 435.1009 — Institutionalized individuals. Cornell Law School. https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/42/435.1009
12. The Right Step. What to Expect at The Right Step Houston. Advanced Recovery Systems. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/facilities/what-to-expect-the-right-step-houston/
13. Promises Behavioral Health. What to Expect at Promises Dallas-Fort Worth. Advanced Recovery Systems. https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/facilities/what-to-expect-promises-dallas-fort-worth/

This page is for general information and is not medical advice. Only a licensed clinician who knows your history can tell you what is right for you. If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, call 911. For free, confidential support 24/7, call or text 988.

Author

Kevin Wandler, MD

Chief Medical Officer, The Recovery Village