In 2024, health care providers in Kotzebue billed $2,314,703 to Medicaid for Evaluation and Management services, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This represents a 10.7% increase over 2023, when claims for the same service category totaled $2,090,764.
Medicaid serves as a publicly funded health insurance program, managed by states and financed by both federal and state governments. It offers coverage for individuals and families with low income, along with seniors, children and people with disabilities, making it a fundamental element in the U.S. health care system.
Because Medicaid funding comes from tax dollars, variation in billing levels locally illustrates how health care resources are distributed in a community.
The “Evaluation and Management” grouping includes Medicaid-billed services that are classified by the type of care provided, based on standardized HCPCS and CPT code classifications. For this reporting, individual codes were attributed to a single service category by code prefix and specific numeric ranges, allowing similar services to be analyzed together while preventing duplication and ensuring accuracy in ranking trends over time.
While spending on Medicaid increased in several service categories, Evaluation and Management ranked second by total Medicaid dollars paid out in Kotzebue during 2024.
Statewide in Alaska, the Evaluation and Management category also ranked second overall for Medicaid spending that year.
Across the five-year period ending in 2024, payments for Evaluation and Management in Kotzebue rose by $483,554, or 26.4%. The rate of increase quickened in select years, with notable annual gains in both 2023 and 2022.
Although these payments were made throughout Kotzebue, they were mostly concentrated in specific ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 99752 alone reported $2,314,702 in Medicaid Evaluation and Management claims, accounting for the full share of payments of this category in Kotzebue that year.
For the Evaluation and Management grouping, Medicaid outlays were most concentrated among a handful of key billing codes.
In comparison, payments for Evaluation and Management rose by 10.7% between 2024 and 2023, outpacing a 7.5% overall increase across all Medicaid claim categories in the city for that timeframe.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, total federal and state Medicaid expenditures reached approximately $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, making up around 18% of total national health costs, up from roughly $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 outbreak.
This growth of about 40% over several years has been propelled largely by increased enrollment and greater usage of services during and after the pandemic.
Recent federal budget policies under the Trump administration have introduced major plans for Medicaid reforms. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is expected to reduce federal Medicaid expenditures by over $1 trillion over the next 10 years with proposed changes such as work requirements and higher cost-sharing for some enrollees. These steps would shift more program costs to states and potentially limit future federal Medicaid funding growth, even as the program continues to cover tens of millions of residents.
| Year | Total Medicaid Payments | % Change From Previous Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $1,831,148 | -58.9% |
| 2021 | $1,638,127 | -10.5% |
| 2022 | $1,753,971 | 7.1% |
| 2023 | $2,090,764 | 19.2% |
| 2024 | $2,314,702 | 10.7% |
| Rank | Category | Medicaid Payments | Share of City Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Pathology and Laboratory Procedures | $2,701,685 | 25.7% |
| 2 | Evaluation and Management | $2,314,702 | 22.1% |
| 3 | Procedures / Professional Services | $1,660,217 | 15.8% |
| 4 | Medicine Services and Procedures | $1,567,078 | 14.9% |
| 5 | Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment | $1,224,482 | 11.7% |
| 6 | Dental Services | $397,931 | 3.8% |
| 7 | National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies | $257,564 | 2.5% |
| 8 | Radiology Procedures | $138,809 | 1.3% |
| 9 | Drugs Administered Other than Oral Method | $137,599 | 1.3% |
| 10 | Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies | $84,221 | 0.8% |
| 11 | Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) | $9,540 | 0.1% |
| 12 | Temporary Codes | $2,120 | <0.1% |
| 13 | Surgery | $0 | <0.1% |
| HCPCS Code | Description | Medicaid Payments | Claims |
|---|---|---|---|
| 99213 | Office o/p est low 20 min | $1,539,501 | 236 |
| 99283 | Emergency dept visit low mdm | $373,404 | 12 |
| 99282 | Emergency dept visit sf mdm | $150,752 | 11 |
| 99214 | Office o/p est mod 30 min | $64,835 | 19 |
| 99211 | Off/op est may x req phy/qhp | $63,451 | 12 |
| 99284 | Emergency dept visit mod mdm | $62,205 | 12 |
| 99215 | Office o/p est hi 40 min | $31,800 | 3 |
| 99212 | Office o/p est sf 10 min | $24,380 | 14 |
| 99285 | Emergency dept visit hi mdm | $4,372 | 12 |
| 99173 | Visual acuity screen | $0 | 1 |
| 99232 | Sbsq hosp ip/obs moderate 35 | $0 | 1 |
| 99238 | Hosp ip/obs dschrg mgmt 30/< | $0 | 9 |
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.