Poplar Medicaid payments for Medicine Services and Procedures climb to $4,659 in 2024

In 2024, providers in Poplar billed $4,659 to Medicaid for services classified under the Medicine Services and Procedures category, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This amount represents a 54.4% increase over 2023, when claims for the same service type reached $3,017.

Medicaid, a public health insurance program operated by states and funded through both federal and state contributions, provides coverage for low-income individuals and families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities. It is recognized as one of the largest segments of the U.S. health care landscape.

Since Medicaid funding is supported by taxpayers, fluctuations in local billing volumes illustrate how public dollars for health care are distributed within a community.

The “Medicine Services and Procedures” category encompasses a range of Medicaid-billed services, organized by the type of care delivered and defined through specific HCPCS and CPT coding groupings. For this analysis, each billing code was assigned to one service category using uniform code prefixes and numeric boundaries, ensuring related services are grouped together, avoiding double counting, and maintaining accurate year-to-year rankings.

While Medicaid spending grew across several service sectors, Medicine Services and Procedures stood as the fourth largest category for Medicaid payments in Poplar in 2024.

Statewide, Medicine Services and Procedures was the fifth highest category by Medicaid payment totals in Montana in 2024.

During the five-year span ending in 2024, Medicaid spending tied to the Medicine Services and Procedures category in Poplar expanded by $4,134—or 788%. There were periods of especially rapid growth, with substantial year-over-year increases reported for both 2022 and 2022.

Although payments for services in this category occurred throughout Poplar, the majority were concentrated in a small number of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 59255 accounted for all $4,659 in Medicaid payments linked to Medicine Services and Procedures. This means 1 ZIP code contributed 100% of the category’s Medicaid payments in Poplar that year.

Medicaid funding within the Medicine Services and Procedures category also centered on a small subset of billing codes.

Comparatively, Medicaid payments in Poplar for this category surged 54.4% from 2023 to 2024, while the overall increase across all categories in the city during that period was 26.1%.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported that total federal and state Medicaid spending reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, making up roughly 18% of the nation’s health expenditures—a steep rise from $613.5 billion in 2019, ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This surge, mainly attributed to growth in enrollment and greater service utilization during and after the pandemic, reflects about a 40% increase over just a few years.

Legislation passed during the Trump administration’s federal budget process included significant efforts to reduce Medicaid funding and restructure the program. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is estimated to trim more than $1 trillion in federal Medicaid funds over 10 years and introduces new requirements such as work qualifications and increased cost-sharing, which could limit coverage and financial support for certain recipients. These measures are expected to transfer greater fiscal responsibility to states and limit the expansion of federal Medicaid aid while the program remains vital for millions of Americans.

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.