Texas STAR+PLUS Payer Guide — MCO Credentialing & EVV

Texas is one of the most complex Medicaid markets in the country for home care agencies. The state runs multiple distinct programs — each with different managed care organizations, different authorization processes, different EVV requirements, and different credentialing timelines. If you're billing across several of these programs, your administrative load compounds with each one you add.

For agencies in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Austin, Fort Worth, and other Texas metros, most clients come through two to four payer sources. A single client might receive personal attendant services through STAR+PLUS while simultaneously having a home health authorization under a different managed care pathway. Getting paid for that work means navigating two systems, two MCOs, and two sets of billing rules at the same time.

Understanding the landscape isn't academic. It determines where you build credentialing capacity, where billing errors concentrate, and which payer relationships need the most active management.

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Texas Medicaid operates through the Texas Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC). For home care agencies, the relevant programs fall into five categories:

1. STAR+PLUS — Managed care for long-term services and supports for adults with disabilities and seniors
2. STAR Kids — Managed care for children and young adults with complex medical needs
3. Community First Choice (CFC) — Personal attendant services as a Medicaid state plan benefit
4. 1915(c) Waivers (HCS, TxHmL) — Community-based services for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities
5. Primary Home Care / Community Attendant Services — Legacy fee-for-service attendant care

Each has different rules, different payers, and different administrative requirements. Most Texas home care agencies serving adult Medicaid clients participate in at least two of these programs.

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STAR+PLUS (State of Texas Access Reform Plus) is the managed care program that covers most of the long-term services and supports home care agencies provide to adults. If you're delivering personal attendant services, home health services, or community-based LTSS to adult Medicaid beneficiaries in Texas, you are almost certainly billing through STAR+PLUS managed care organizations.

What STAR+PLUS Covers

• Personal attendant services (bathing, dressing, meal preparation, housekeeping, mobility assistance)
• Home health services (skilled nursing, therapy, home health aide services)
• Community First Choice services (administered through STAR+PLUS MCOs — see below)
• Day activity and health services
• Emergency response services
• Minor home modifications

How Managed Care Works Within STAR+PLUS

HHSC contracts with managed care organizations to administer STAR+PLUS benefits across defined service delivery areas (SDAs). The MCOs — not HHSC directly — are responsible for authorizing services, credentialing providers, and processing claims.

This means your agency cannot simply obtain a Texas Medicaid provider number and bill the state. You must contract and credential separately with each MCO operating in your SDA. Agencies whose service areas span multiple SDAs may need active contracts with four to six MCOs.

Current STAR+PLUS MCOs operating in Texas include:

• Aetna Better Health of Texas
• Molina Healthcare of Texas
• Superior Health Plan (a Centene/WellCare company)
• UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Texas
• Community Health Choice (primarily the Greater Houston area)

MCO contracts are renegotiated at each HHSC contract cycle. Always verify the current MCO list for your specific service delivery area at hhs.texas.gov before pursuing enrollment.

Service Delivery Areas

Texas divides the state into geographic SDAs. Each SDA has a defined set of MCOs offering STAR+PLUS coverage. Major metro areas — Harris County (Houston), Dallas, Tarrant (Fort Worth), Bexar (San Antonio), Travis (Austin) — each constitute their own SDA or part of one. MCO competition and available network capacity vary meaningfully by market.

For agencies operating across multiple Texas metros, this creates a patchwork credentialing challenge. You may have complete, active contracts in Dallas while a STAR+PLUS application in San Antonio is still pending because a different MCO holds that contract and has a different credentialing queue.

MCOs by Major Texas Metro — Quick Reference

The following table shows the STAR+PLUS MCOs most agencies will need to credential with in each of the six major Texas home care markets. MCO assignments are subject to change at each HHSC contract cycle — confirm current assignments at hhs.texas.gov/star-plus before beginning applications.

Planning note: Agencies entering multiple Texas markets should build credentialing applications in parallel rather than sequentially. Each MCO runs its own queue independently — a Houston application and a Dallas application can advance simultaneously without interfering with each other. Starting them in sequence adds months to your revenue timeline.

Dallas County agencies navigating the three active STAR+PLUS MCOs (Superior, Molina, UHC) and the seven-county Dallas Service Area can find a deeper market-specific breakdown in the Dallas Home Care Agency Operations guide, which covers the Dallas SDA geography, MCO credentialing workflows, EVV requirements, and the DFW caregiver recruiting environment. Houston agencies managing four or five MCOs across HHSC Service Area 6 can find the equivalent guide at Houston Home Care Agency Operations, covering the eight-county Gulf Coast coverage area, the Houston-specific MCO set, bilingual staffing considerations, and hurricane preparedness compliance requirements.

San Antonio agencies working through the Bexar Service Area — including the locally-based Community First Health Plans alongside Molina and UHC — can find market-specific guidance for home care virtual assistant staffing in San Antonio, covering CFC billing workflows and the bilingual staffing advantage in Bexar County.

EVV Requirements Under STAR+PLUS

All personal attendant services and home health aide visits under STAR+PLUS require Electronic Visit Verification. Texas uses HHAeXchange as its statewide EVV aggregator — regardless of which EVV system your agency or MCO uses at the point of care, the data must ultimately flow through HHAeXchange for state reporting.

Individual MCOs may layer additional EVV requirements on top of the state standard. Some require near-real-time reporting windows; others accept batch submissions within 24 or 48 hours. These differences affect exception rates and how quickly corrections need to happen. For more detail on managing EVV compliance operations day-to-day, see EVV Compliance for Home Care Agencies.

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STAR Kids is Texas Medicaid's managed care program for children and young adults (under 21) with physical, developmental, or behavioral health conditions who require long-term services and supports. If your agency serves pediatric Medicaid clients, you're operating within STAR Kids rather than STAR+PLUS.

STAR Kids has its own credentialing process and its own authorization workflows, completely separate from STAR+PLUS even when the services look similar. MCO assignments for STAR Kids are distinct from STAR+PLUS MCO assignments, so an active STAR+PLUS contract with a given MCO does not automatically extend to STAR Kids.

EVV requirements for STAR Kids mirror STAR+PLUS: HHAeXchange aggregation is required for qualifying visits.

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Community First Choice is a Medicaid state plan benefit (Section 1915(k)) that provides personal attendant and habilitation services to people with functional limitations. In Texas, CFC services are administered through the STAR+PLUS MCOs — it is not a standalone program with separate billing pathways.

The distinction that matters operationally: CFC is federally defined, which creates specific documentation requirements that differ from standard STAR+PLUS personal attendant services. A CFC claim submitted with the wrong modifier or the wrong HCPCS code gets denied. Your billing team needs to track which members are enrolled under CFC versus standard STAR+PLUS attendant care because the documentation and claim coding differ, even when the actual care delivered looks the same.

For billing best practices across payer types, see Home Care Billing Support.

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Home and Community-Based Services (HCS) and Texas Home Living (TxHmL) are 1915(c) Medicaid waivers specifically for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). These programs are not managed care — they are administered directly by HHSC on a fee-for-service basis through certified Program Providers.

For home care agencies, HCS and TxHmL represent a distinct market segment from STAR+PLUS. Clients are typically younger, services are often more intensive or habilitative in nature, and the administrative requirements are different:

• A separate HHSC HCS or TxHmL Program Provider certification is required (beyond a standard Medicaid provider number)
• HHSC conducts site surveys and policy reviews as part of certification
• IDD-specific billing codes and documentation standards apply
• EVV is required for applicable services

Most general home care agencies focus on STAR+PLUS rather than HCS/TxHmL, but agencies that serve the IDD population should understand that this creates a separate, longer credentialing pathway and a separate billing environment from their Medicaid managed care work.

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Primary Home Care (PHC) and Community Attendant Services (CAS) are older Texas Medicaid programs providing personal attendant care on a fee-for-service basis, administered directly by HHSC. These programs have been substantially transitioned into managed care over time, but a population of beneficiaries — particularly in rural and semi-rural areas with limited MCO coverage — remain on PHC/CAS.

If you bill PHC or CAS, you are billing HHSC directly via the Texas Medicaid claims system (currently processed through Gainwell Technologies) rather than through an MCO. EVV requirements still apply, but the reporting pathway differs from STAR+PLUS.

The administrative overhead per claim is often lower because you're dealing with a single, standardized fee schedule rather than multiple MCO contracts. However, authorization and renewal cycles can be slower, and PHC/CAS beneficiaries are increasingly being transitioned to STAR+PLUS managed care, which means this population will shrink over time.

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Consumer Directed Services (CDS) is a self-direction option available across several Texas Medicaid programs, including STAR+PLUS and certain waivers. Under CDS, the Medicaid member — or their designated representative — acts as the employer of record for their attendant. A Financial Management Services Agency (FMSA) handles payroll and HR compliance functions.

For home care agencies, CDS means a different service model: you're not the employer of the attendant, and you may be providing support coordination or FMSA services rather than direct care staffing. MCO referrals increasingly include CDS-enrolled members, so your intake and authorization teams need to identify CDS enrollment early, because the documentation, billing, and operational pathways diverge from traditional agency-directed care.

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Programs of All-inclusive Care for the Elderly (PACE) are comprehensive managed care programs for frail older adults that integrate medical, social, and long-term care services. PACE participants are typically dual-eligible (Medicare + Medicaid). Texas has PACE programs operating in several metro areas including Dallas and San Antonio.

For home care agencies, PACE is a separate contracting relationship. PACE organizations are responsible for all participant care and contract directly with provider agencies for home care services. They are not standard MCOs — they're integrated care organizations with independent provider networks. Contracting with a PACE program in your market is a separate step from your STAR+PLUS MCO credentialing, with its own application process and its own rate structure.

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Texas home care agencies serving adult Medicaid clients in major metros typically see a client mix spanning two to four of these programs. That creates compounding administrative complexity.

Multiple credentialing timelines running simultaneously. A new agency pursuing STAR+PLUS enrollment with three MCOs plus PHC billing can have four separate credentialing applications in flight, each at a different stage, each requiring different documentation, each with a different follow-up cadence. Without dedicated tracking, one of them will fall through the cracks. For a full breakdown of what Texas credentialing involves, see Home Care Credentialing Support.

Different authorization systems per payer. Each STAR+PLUS MCO has its own prior authorization portal, its own rules for how much documentation is required, and its own reauthorization frequency. When a member changes plans mid-year — which happens regularly during the annual open enrollment period — the authorization has to be transferred or resubmitted with the new MCO.

EVV reconciliation across payer types. All Texas Medicaid programs route through HHAeXchange as the aggregator, which simplifies the data flow. But exception resolution still requires knowing which MCO or HHSC program is the billing payer for each visit, because correction documentation and attestation processes vary by payer.

Billing codes that look similar but aren't. STAR+PLUS personal attendant services and Community First Choice attendant services can look identical at the point of care but require different HCPCS codes and modifiers. Billing errors at this level don't surface until the claim comes back denied — or worse, until a retrospective payer audit.

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These timelines assume complete, accurate applications submitted on the first attempt. A single missing document can add three to six weeks to any of them. Agencies expanding into new payer relationships in Texas should plan credentialing timelines well before the anticipated start of service — not after signing a referral source agreement.

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Every STAR+PLUS MCO runs its own credentialing process, but the core document package is largely standardized across MCOs. Assembling this before submitting your first application prevents the mid-queue document requests that add weeks to the timeline.

Entity and Licensing Documents

• HCSSA license issued by HHSC (Type A, B, or C as applicable to your services — copy of the license certificate)
• Current HHSC Medicaid provider number (NPI-linked Medicaid enrollment)
• NPI Type 2 (organization NPI) — individual practitioner NPIs (Type 1) may be required for skilled service enrollments
• Texas Secretary of State filing confirmation (certificate of formation for Texas entities, certificate of authority for out-of-state entities)
• W-9 form (current, signed by authorized representative)

CAQH Profile

• Completed CAQH ProView provider profile, attested within the past 90 days — this is the single most common delay point. Aetna, Molina, Superior, and UHC all pull credentialing data from CAQH; an outdated attestation or incomplete profile stalls every MCO simultaneously.
• Verify that your organization-level CAQH profile includes all service locations and all services being credentialed.

Insurance Certificates

• Commercial general liability insurance (minimum $1M per occurrence / $3M aggregate — confirm each MCO's specific threshold; some require higher limits for skilled service providers)
• Workers' compensation insurance certificate
• Professional liability / E&O coverage (required by some MCOs for skilled nursing and therapy enrollments; verify for personal attendant-only agencies)

Compliance and Exclusion Documentation

• OIG exclusion check results for all owners, directors, and principals (run at oig.hhs.gov/exclusions)
• Texas HHS Office of Inspector General exclusion check for same individuals
• Disclosure of ownership form (standard CMS disclosure for individuals with 5%+ ownership interest)

Staff and Clinical Credentials (if enrolling skilled service types)

• Copies of professional licenses for practitioners being enrolled under the contract (RNs, LVNs, PTs, OTs, SLPs as applicable)
• Background check documentation policy for direct care staff

Operational Details

• Physical office address — must be a permanent, non-residential location for most MCOs
• Service area definition: counties or ZIP codes your agency serves
• List of HCPCS service codes being requested (align with your HCSSA license scope; CFC services require separate code authorization)

Practical tip: Create a shared document folder with current copies of all items above before submitting your first MCO application. Updating the folder when any document renews (insurance certificates, CAQH attestation) keeps every future application ready without a document-hunting delay.

For a step-by-step walkthrough of the STAR+PLUS MCO enrollment process from initial application to contract execution, see Texas STAR+PLUS MCO Provider Enrollment.

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Running credentialing across four to six active Texas payers — while managing concurrent billing submissions, EVV reconciliation, and authorization renewals across different MCO portals — is a full-time operations function. Most agencies that do this in-house either have a dedicated credentialing specialist (a hire that runs $55,000–$75,000/year in major Texas markets) or the owner is managing it directly between everything else.

The practical challenges:

• Tracking all active credentialing applications with current status and next-action dates, across MCOs that each use different portals and different timelines
• Following up with MCOs and HHSC on pending applications — some require weekly calls to get movement
• Monitoring revalidation cycles so nothing lapses without advance notice (Medicaid enrollment lapses are not caught until a claim gets denied)
• Managing EVV exception queues daily and resolving them before billing deadlines
• Submitting claims to the right billing pathway — MCO portal, HHAeXchange aggregator, or Gainwell for fee-for-service — for each payer type
• Catching CFC-vs.-STAR+PLUS coding differences before claims are submitted

For a month-by-month reference of all recurring compliance deadlines — CAQH re-attestation cycles, HCSSA survey prep windows, MCO credentialing renewal dates, and EVV reporting deadlines — see the Texas Home Care Compliance Calendar 2026.

Atlas handles this as part of the back-office operations model. If you're building out your Texas payer relationships or if your current multi-payer admin is leaking revenue through denied claims and delayed enrollments, we can take that work off your plate.

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Texas Medicaid is not static. MCO contract cycles, program rules, EVV requirements, and credentialing processes change regularly. This guide reflects program structures as of mid-2026 — always verify current details with HHSC directly before making enrollment decisions.

Authoritative sources:

• HHSC Medicaid for Providers: hhs.texas.gov/providers/medicaid-chip-for-providers
• STAR+PLUS program information: hhs.texas.gov/star-plus
• Texas EVV program: hhs.texas.gov/evv
• HHAeXchange Texas provider portal: hhaeXchange.com
• Texas Association for Home Care & Hospice (TAHC&H) at tahch.org — the primary industry association for Texas home care providers; an essential resource for regulatory updates, MCO relationship-building, and compliance guidance in the Texas market.