Tar Heel Medicaid spending for National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies totals $73,122 in 2024

In 2024, Tar Heel Medicaid providers billed $73,122 for services under the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies, data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database show. This represented a 78.2% rise from 2023, when claims for the same service type amounted to $41,031.

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

Because Medicaid payments are funded by taxpayers, changes in local billing rates indicate how public health care resources are distributed in the community.

The “National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies” category refers to a set of Medicaid-billed services grouped by type of care as defined by HCPCS and CPT code standards. For this report, each billing code was matched to a single service category using uniform code prefixes and numeric ranges. This approach allows related services to be tracked together, eliminates double counting, and preserves accuracy in long-term rankings.

In 2024, National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies was the leading service category by total Medicaid payments in Tar Heel despite increases in spending across several categories.

Statewide, the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category also ranked first in North Carolina by overall Medicaid payments in 2024.

Over the five-year period ending in 2024, Medicaid payments for National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies in Tar Heel grew by $64,489, an increase of 747%. Periods of accelerated growth included sizable year-over-year increases in both 2023 and 2021.

Although Medicaid expenditures in the category were spread across Tar Heel, most payments were found in a few ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 28392 accounted for $73,121 in Medicaid payments in this category. Overall, the top 1 ZIP code made up 100% of all Medicaid payments in this service category within the city for the year.

Medicaid spending within the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category was also concentrated among a few specific billing codes.

Comparison shows Medicaid payments for this category in Tar Heel increased 78.2% from 2023 to 2024, while all Medicaid claim categories in the city rose by 19.7% during that period.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined state and federal Medicaid spending was about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, making up roughly 18% of total U.S. health expenditures. That is a sharp increase from $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This marks a growth of about 40% in just a few years, driven in large part by increased enrollment and greater service use during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal spending legislation signed under the Trump administration includes major proposals to reduce federal Medicaid funding and change how the program works. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed in 2025, is expected to cut more than $1 trillion in federal Medicaid spending over the next decade and adds policies such as work requirements and higher cost-sharing, which could decrease coverage and funding for some recipients. These changes are projected to shift additional costs onto states and slow the growth of federal Medicaid support, even as the program continues to provide coverage to millions of Americans.

Note: HCPCS codes are provided for reference within the category. All totals and category rankings in this article use standardized service groupings rather than individual billing codes.

All information in this article comes from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. Source data can be found here.