Medicaid spending for pathology and laboratory procedures grows 64.8% in Poplar in 2024

According to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database, Medicaid providers in Poplar billed $6,355 for services in the Pathology and Laboratory Procedures category in 2024. This amount was up 64.8% over the prior year, when claims for the same types of services reached $3,856.

Medicaid, a state-run public health insurance program with joint federal and state funding, insures low-income people and families, seniors, children, and those with disabilities. It is a major component of the nation’s health care landscape. For more details, see this explainer.

Because Medicaid payments are funded by taxpayers, shifts in community billing patterns reflect how local public resources are distributed for health care.

The “Pathology and Laboratory Procedures” category represents services grouped by the type of care provided, following standard HCPCS and CPT code guidelines. Each billing code in this analysis was linked to a single service group using standard code patterns and ranges to group similar services, prevent double-counting, and ensure accurate rankings across years.

While Medicaid expenditures grew across several service categories, Pathology and Laboratory Procedures ranked as the third highest by total Medicaid payments in Poplar for 2024.

Statewide in Montana, the Pathology and Laboratory Procedures category ranked eighth for total Medicaid payments in 2024.

Between 2019 and 2024, Poplar’s Medicaid payments for the Pathology and Laboratory Procedures category went up by $2,177, a 52.1% rise. Certain timeframes saw accelerated growth, with especially marked increases noted in 2022 and 2023.

Within Poplar, although the spending for Pathology and Laboratory Procedures was spread across the city, the majority of payments came from a small number of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 59255 accounted for $6,354 in payments in this category, making up 100% of such Medicaid payments in Poplar that year.

Spending within the Pathology and Laboratory Procedures category was also highly concentrated among just a few billing codes.

To compare, between 2024 and 2023, Poplar’s Medicaid payments for Pathology and Laboratory Procedures grew by 64.8%. That’s higher than the 26.1% change seen for all Medicaid claim categories citywide over the same period.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, total state and federal Medicaid spending reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, making up roughly 18% of all U.S. health expenditures—an increase from around $613.5 billion in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This change represents an increase of about 40% in a few years, much of it driven by more people enrolling in Medicaid and using more services during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget acts passed under the Trump administration have brought major proposals to curb federal Medicaid spending and alter the program’s structure. For example, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is expected to reduce federal Medicaid expenditures by more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years and implements measures such as work requirements and increased cost-sharing. These moves may cut coverage and funding for certain enrollees, placing greater financial responsibility on states while federal Medicaid growth slows, even as the program serves tens of millions nationwide.

Note: HCPCS codes are shown for context within the category. Category totals and rankings in this article are based on standardized service groupings rather than individual billing codes.

Information in this article was obtained from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. The source data can be found here.