Gambell Medicaid spending for Evaluation and Management services hits $439,900 in 2024

Gambell Medicaid providers billed $439,900 for Evaluation and Management services in 2024, as reported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This amount was up 92.9% from 2023, when $228,021 in claims were submitted for these services.

Medicaid is a public health insurance program managed by states and financed collaboratively between federal and state governments. It serves low-income individuals and families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities, ranking as one of the nation’s largest health care programs.

Since Medicaid is funded by taxpayers, fluctuations in local billing illustrate how public health care resources are distributed within a community.

The “Evaluation and Management” classification groups Medicaid services by the nature of care provided, determined by standard HCPCS and CPT code sets. For this analysis, each billing code was allocated to a single service group by using consistent code prefixes and ranges, which enabled related services to be reviewed together, avoided duplicate counting, and supported accurate trend rankings.

While Medicaid expenses rose across several service categories, Evaluation and Management ranked highest in Gambell for total Medicaid payments in 2024.

Statewide in Alaska, Evaluation and Management took the second spot for total Medicaid payments in 2024.

Across the five years leading up to 2024, Gambell’s Medicaid spending on Evaluation and Management services grew by $387,360, representing a 737.3% increase. The rate of growth sped up during specific periods, with significant jumps in 2021 and 2022.

Spending for care within the Evaluation and Management category was spread throughout Gambell, but payments were particularly concentrated in select ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 99742 accounted for $439,900, making up 100% of all Medicaid payments for this category in the city.

Within the Evaluation and Management classification, a small number of billing codes accounted for most Medicaid payments.

To compare, Medicaid payments in Gambell for Evaluation and Management services rose 92.9% between 2024 and 2023, mirroring a 92.9% change across all Medicaid claim categories in the city for the same period.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reports that combined federal and state Medicaid expenditures reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, about 18% of all national health spending. This reflects a marked increase from around $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This uptick equates to approximately 40% growth over just a few years, mainly due to increases in enrollment and service use during and after the pandemic.

Federal budget legislation during the Trump administration enacted significant changes to Medicaid funding and structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is expected to cut federal Medicaid funding by over $1 trillion in the next decade. It also includes provisions such as work requirements and greater cost-sharing, which could impact coverage and funding for some recipients. These policy shifts are forecasted to shift more financial responsibility to states and may restrict the expansion of federal Medicaid support, even as the program continues to provide for tens of 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.