Whitwell Medicaid spending on medicine services reaches $558,272 in 2024, increasing 91%

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Whitwell billed $558,272 for Medicine Services and Procedures, based on information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This amount represents a 90.8% increase over 2023, when the total claims for the same category amounted to $292,615.

Medicaid is a joint federal-state public health insurance program, supported by both the state and federal government. The program offers coverage for individuals and families with low incomes, seniors, children, and those living with disabilities, positioning it as a significant component within the U.S. health care system.

Since Medicaid payments are sourced from taxpayers, variations in billing amounts reflect the allocation of public health care funds within the community.

The “Medicine Services and Procedures” category groups Medicaid-billed services based on care type and utilizes established HCPCS and CPT code sets. For this report, each billing code has been sorted into a single service category using standardized code prefixes and numeric ranges. This approach allows related services to be analyzed together, reduces duplicate counting, and preserves ranking accuracy over time.

Medicine Services and Procedures was the leading Medicaid payment category in Whitwell for 2024, based on total payments, although spending grew across several service categories.

Statewide in Tennessee, Medicine Services and Procedures ranked as the fifth-largest Medicaid payment category in 2024.

During the five-year period through 2024, Medicaid payments for Medicine Services and Procedures in Whitwell rose by $558,272, reflecting a 0% increase. Growth in expenditures accelerated at certain points, with notable gains year over year in 2023 and 2022.

Although Medicine Services and Procedures payments supported care throughout the city, spending was heavily concentrated in a small number of ZIP codes. In 2024, the leading ZIP code for Medicaid payments in this category was 37397, which accounted for $558,272. The top ZIP code represented 100% of Whitwell’s Medicaid payments linked to Medicine Services and Procedures in 2024.

Within this service group, Medicaid payments also clustered around a small number of billing codes.

When comparing categories, Medicaid payments for Medicine Services and Procedures in Whitwell increased by 90.8% from 2023 to 2024, whereas overall Medicaid claim spending citywide rose by 4.4% during the same interval.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, total federal and state Medicaid expenditures reached roughly $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, comprising about 18% of all national health expenditures. This total jumped substantially from $613.5 billion in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The growth represents about a 40% increase in just a few years, fueled mainly by higher enrollment and service use during and after the pandemic period.

Federal budget measures enacted during the Trump administration have introduced major proposals to reduce Medicaid funding and restructure its design. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed in 2025, is anticipated to cut federal Medicaid expenditures by more than $1 trillion over 10 years and includes measures such as work requirements and increased cost-sharing, potentially limiting coverage and funding for certain recipients. These reforms are projected to shift greater cost burdens onto states and restrain the growth of federal Medicaid contributions, as the program continues to provide for 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.