Attalla sees 713% surge in Medicaid payments for Medicine Services and Procedures in 2024

According to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database, Attalla Medicaid providers billed $23,630 for Medicine Services and Procedures in 2024. This represents a 712.9% increase over 2023, when providers submitted $2,907 in claims for the same service category.

Medicaid, a public health insurance program overseen by the states and jointly funded by federal and state governments, serves low-income individuals and families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities, making it one of the largest components of the U.S. health care system.

Shifts in local Medicaid billing levels reflect how taxpayer dollars for health care are distributed within a community.

The “Medicine Services and Procedures” category includes a range of Medicaid-billed services, organized by the type of care based on standard HCPCS and CPT code groupings. In this report, billing codes were assigned to service categories using consistent code prefixes and ranges to avoid double counting and ensure accurate rankings across years.

Multiple categories saw higher Medicaid spending, but Medicine Services and Procedures ranked first by total payments in Attalla in 2024.

Across Alabama, Medicine Services and Procedures was the fourth largest Medicaid payment category by amount billed for 2024.

In the five years prior to 2024, Medicaid payments in Attalla for Medicine Services and Procedures increased $21,258, or 896.4%. Growth was especially high in certain years, notably in 2020 and 2023.

Most spending remained limited to a small number of ZIP codes in the city; in 2024, the highest Medicaid payments in this category came from ZIP code 35954, totaling $23,630. The leading ZIP code accounted for 100% of the payments in this category in Attalla for the year.

A small number of billing codes within the Medicine Services and Procedures category made up most Medicaid payments.

Between 2024 and 2023 in Attalla, Medicaid payments for this category climbed 712.9%, in contrast to the 122.1% increase across all Medicaid claim categories during the same time.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined federal and state Medicaid expenditures reached approximately $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023—about 18% of total national health spending. This is a sharp rise from around $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This growth equals roughly 40% in a few years, largely due to expanded enrollment and increased service use amid and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget laws under the Trump administration enacted major proposals to reduce federal Medicaid funding and overhaul the program. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed in 2025, is projected to lower federal Medicaid spending by more than $1 trillion over 10 years, introduce work requirements, and expand cost-sharing—potentially reducing coverage for some recipients. These measures could require states to shoulder more costs and limit new federal Medicaid growth, even as the program continues to support 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.