Nome’s Medicaid payments for medicine services reach $2,160,881 in 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Nome billed a total of $2,160,881 for care categorized as Medicine Services and Procedures, based on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This amount represents a 12.8% rise compared with the prior year, when claims for these services totaled $1,915,304.

Medicaid, a public health insurance program overseen by states with joint federal and state financing, provides coverage for low-income families and individuals, seniors, children, and people with disabilities, making it a major component of the national healthcare system.

With Medicaid funded through taxpayer dollars, any change in local billing demonstrates how a community’s public health funding is distributed.

The Medicine Services and Procedures category consists of a set of Medicaid-billed healthcare services, classified by type of care using consistent HCPCS and CPT code prefixes and numeric ranges. Each code is counted only once under a single service category for analysis, to allow accurate comparisons across years and groupings without double counting.

Medicine Services and Procedures saw its Medicaid spending grow among multiple service areas and ranked third by total Medicaid payments in Nome in 2024.

Statewide across Alaska, the Medicine Services and Procedures category held the fourth position in total Medicaid payments in 2024.

Between 2019 and 2024, Nome’s Medicaid payments for Medicine Services and Procedures climbed by $488,827, or 29.2%. Some annual periods showed increased year-over-year spending, particularly in 2021 and 2022.

While care spending in the Medicine Services and Procedures category occurred across the city, payments were concentrated in a small number of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 99762 accounted for $2,160,880, representing 100% of Medicaid payments within this category in Nome for the year.

Within the category, most Medicaid spending focused on a narrow set of billing codes.

Comparatively, the 12.8% rise in Medicine Services and Procedures spending in Nome between 2024 and 2023 exceeded the 9.6% increase recorded across all Medicaid claim types in the city for the same period.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined federal and state Medicaid outlays reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, amounting to 18% of total national health expenditures, a significant jump from roughly $613.5 billion in 2019 before the COVID-19 emergency.

This nearly 40% increase over several years largely stems from enrollment growth and greater use of services during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal funding legislation from the Trump administration included major efforts to lower federal Medicaid contributions and restructure the program. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed in 2025, is expected to cut over $1 trillion in federal Medicaid dollars during the next decade and bring changes such as work requirements and more cost-sharing, potentially reducing access and coverage for certain enrollees. These adjustments are likely to require states to shoulder more costs and constrict federal Medicaid growth, while the program continues to serve 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.