EIDBI family training is the part of Minnesota's Early Intensive Developmental and Behavioral Intervention (EIDBI) benefit that treats the caregiver as part of the treatment. Minn. Stat. § 256B.0949, subd. 13(i) defines family/caregiver training and counseling as "specialized training and education for a family or primary caregiver to understand the person's developmental status and help with the person's needs and development," and states that it "must be provided by the QSP, level I provider, or level II provider."
On the claim it is CPT 97156 for one family or 97157 for a group, each with the UB modifier in 15-minute units. The Department of Human Services (DHS) EIDBI billing grid requires authorization, lists the service among those billable without the member present, marks it as telehealth-eligible, and limits it to four hours per day.
This guide covers what the service is and who may deliver it, 97156 versus 97157, units and modifiers, presence and telehealth, the individual treatment plan (ITP), the session note, authorization, and common denials, as of September 2026. For the benefit as a whole, see what EIDBI is.
What family/caregiver training and counseling is under § 256B.0949
The statute treats caregiver training as its own covered service, separate from intervention. Subd. 13(a) requires every EIDBI service to address the person's medically necessary treatment goals, and subd. 13(i) describes this one as training and education for the family or primary caregiver. The legal representative in subd. 2(o) (a parent of a child under 18, a court-appointed guardian, or another person with legal authority to make service decisions) is usually the "family" on the note, but the service extends to a primary caregiver who is not the legal representative.
Three statutory hooks tie it to the rest of the record. The comprehensive multi-disciplinary evaluation (CMDE) must record the legal representative's or primary caregiver's preferences for involvement in treatment (subd. 5). The ITP must specify "the level of legal representative or primary caregiver training and counseling" (subd. 6(c)(2)(iii)). And travel time is billable for traveling to the person's home or a community setting to provide in-person family caregiver training when the ITP states why the provider must travel (subd. 13(k)).
Who may deliver it is settled by the statute and repeated on the grid. Subd. 13(i) names the qualified supervising professional (QSP), Level I, and Level II. The grid has 97156 and 97157 rows only for those three roles, and pays the Level II row at a lower percentage of the rate than the QSP and Level I rows. Level III providers, who deliver intervention under supervision, have no row. The EIDBI QSP requirements guide explains the supervision behind each role.
97156 versus 97157
| 97156 | 97157 | |
|---|---|---|
| Grid name | Family or caregiver training and counseling, individual: family adaptive behavior treatment guidance | Family or caregiver training and counseling, group: multiple-family group adaptive behavior treatment guidance |
| Who attends | One person's family or caregivers | Caregivers from more than one family, up to 8 people or couples of caregivers |
| Rendering provider | QSP, Level I, or Level II | QSP, Level I, or Level II |
| Modifier | UB | UB |
| Unit | 1 unit = 15 minutes | 1 unit = 15 minutes |
| Authorization | Required | Required |
| Daily limit | 4 hours per day | 4 hours per day |
| Concurrent billing | Multiple providers may bill at the same time | Multiple providers may bill at the same time |
| Telehealth | Eligible | Eligible |
| Member present | Not required | Not required |
Each family in a 97157 session is billed under its own person's authorization, so one session generates a claim line per person, and the note in each person's record must identify the session and that family's attendees without disclosing other families' protected health information.
Units, the UB modifier, and the daily limit
All EIDBI codes carry the UB modifier, and provider level is a specialty code set at enrollment, not a modifier, so nothing else goes on the line unless it accurately describes the service, such as a telehealth modifier. One unit of 97156 or 97157 is 15 minutes, and Minnesota applies the midpoint rule: a unit is billable only when at least half of it, meaning eight minutes or more, was delivered. The EIDBI billing codes guide covers the rule that billing must pause whenever delivery stops, which applies to a caregiver session as it does to intervention.
The four-hour daily limit is a ceiling; the grid states that daily limits "represent the maximum amount that may be billed in a single day, not a required amount." A pattern of four-hour caregiver sessions on the same days as full intervention blocks will draw a medical necessity question.
Does the person need to be present?
No. The grid lists the EIDBI services that "may be billed without the member present": the CMDE, the ITP, family/caregiver training and counseling, the coordinated care conference, and travel time. The service is delivered to the caregiver, so the caregiver's presence is the requirement. PrimeWest Health's EIDBI provider guidance makes the same point from the other direction, treating training as noncovered when it is not delivered directly to family members or significant others who are present either physically or through interactive video.
Since January 1, 2026, presence has one more consequence. DHS does not allow 97153, 97154, or 0373T to be delivered or billed during homeschool or online school instruction, and 97156 is the one service that remains covered in that time, provided the parent or caregiver is present and participates. A note for a session in school hours therefore has to show the caregiver's participation, not just attendance.
Telehealth rules
Subd. 13(l) covers medically necessary EIDBI services delivered via telehealth "in the same manner as if the service or consultation was delivered in person," and the grid marks 97156 and 97157 as telehealth-eligible. The claim carries the telehealth place of service and modifier from the MHCP telehealth policy, Minnesota Health Care Programs (MHCP) pays no origination, connection, or site fees, and telehealth modifiers apply only to real-time, caregiver-facing sessions.
The limit that trips agencies is the one that does not apply here. Subd. 16(a)(16) allows required monthly observation and direction by telehealth for no more than two consecutive months. That limit is written for observation and direction, not for family training.
How the service ties to the ITP
The ITP element in subd. 6(c)(2)(iii), "the level of legal representative or primary caregiver training and counseling," is the caregiver training plan. DHS's ITP and progress monitoring form (DHS-7109) has a place for it, and the EIDBI documentation guide lists the other ITP elements around it. A reviewer expects that element to state which caregivers will be trained and their preferences from the CMDE; the goals the training supports, tied to the person's treatment goals and the ITP's modality; the frequency, intensity, location, and duration of 97156 or 97157 sessions, as subd. 6(c)(2)(ii) requires for each service; whether sessions are in person or by telehealth and whether the person will be present; and how caregiver progress will be measured.
Progress monitoring after each six months of treatment must include input from the legal representative or primary caregiver, which is where the caregiver training goals get their data. If the caregiver training level changes at the six-month point, the authorization request changes with it.
What a 97156 or 97157 session note must show
The statute does not enumerate session note fields, but subd. 16(a)(4) requires the agency to verify and maintain records of every service provided to the person or the person's legal representative under Minn. R. 9505.2175 and 9505.2197, and the DHS EIDBI manual requires documentation of every service in the health service record. A caregiver training note that supports the claim contains:
| Element | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Person's name and the caregivers who attended, with their relationship to the person | Proves the service went to the family or primary caregiver |
| Whether the person was present | Distinguishes caregiver training from intervention with a parent in the room |
| Date, start and stop times of active delivery, and delivery mode | Supports units and the telehealth modifier |
| Rendering provider's name, level, and credentials, and the supervising QSP | Confirms a QSP, Level I, or Level II rendered it |
| ITP caregiver training goals addressed | Links the session to subd. 6(c)(2)(iii) |
| Training content and methods, in the ITP's modality | Shows what was taught |
| Caregiver practice, response, and questions | Shows the caregiver participated |
| Plan for the next session and any homework | Shows continuity |
| For 97157, the session identifier and the number of families | Supports the group code without exposing other families |
| Signature, credentials, and date | Standard for every EIDBI record |
Compliance note: a note that describes what the child did during a session, with the parent listed as "present," is an intervention note, not a caregiver training note. If the claim line says 97156, the note has to describe what the caregiver learned and practiced.
Authorization and common denial reasons
EIDBI requires authorization, and the grid's service agreement column says "Yes" for 97156 and 97157. For fee-for-service Medical Assistance, Acentra Health reviews CMDEs and ITPs within seven calendar days and gives providers ten calendar days to respond to a pended request; a missed deadline is an administrative denial. Managed care organizations align their processes with DHS guidance.
The denials and recoupments that recur for family training:
- Level III rendering provider on a 97156 or 97157 line.
- No authorization, or units beyond the authorization, often because the ITP's caregiver training level was not updated at the six-month point.
- Missing UB modifier, or a provider level entered as a modifier.
- Note describes intervention, not caregiver training, or does not name the caregivers who attended.
- Telehealth session billed without the telehealth place of service or modifier, or a recorded or asynchronous session billed as telehealth.
- More than four hours in a day, or 97157 groups above eight people or couples.
- Fewer than eight minutes billed as a unit, or breaks included in the time.
- Intervention during homeschool or online school labeled as caregiver training with no caregiver participation in the note.
Each of these is visible before the claim goes out if the note, the ITP, and the authorization are compared at that point rather than after the remittance.
How Trustora helps
Trustora's EIDBI module stores the ITP with the caregiver training level as a required element, so a 97156 or 97157 authorization request pulls its frequency, duration, and delivery mode from the plan. Session notes for family training capture the attendees and their relationship to the person, whether the person was present, segmented start and stop times, the delivery mode, and the ITP goals addressed, and the rendering provider's level is checked against the QSP, Level I, and Level II rule before the note can be tied to a claim.
The claim is built from the note with the UB modifier and the supervising QSP populated, the pre-claim gate compares units to the authorization and the four-hour daily limit, and remittance reconciliation posts denials back to the session for correction or an appeal packet. See the platform overview for the EIDBI workflow.