Medicaid payments for national codes in Natchez rise to $65,525 in 2024, a 57% increase

Medicaid providers in Natchez billed $65,525 in 2024 for services categorized under National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies, based on figures from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This represented a 57% rise compared with 2023, when filings for the same category amounted to $41,725.

Medicaid is a government health insurance program funded in partnership by state and federal governments. The program covers low-income people, children, seniors and those with disabilities, making it a core part of U.S. health care.

Since Medicaid payments come from public sources, fluctuations in local billing reflect how taxpayer-funded medical spending is distributed in a community.

The “National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies” category groups Medicaid-billed services by type, based on standardized HCPCS and CPT code classifications. For this analysis, each code was assigned to a singular service grouping using a consistent set of number ranges and prefixes, which allowed for analysis of comparable services while eliminating duplication and ensuring accurate year-over-year comparisons.

National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies accounted for the highest total Medicaid payments among service categories in Natchez during 2024, even as Medicaid costs climbed in other groupings as well.

Across Louisiana, this category placed second statewide by total claimed Medicaid dollars in 2024.

Medicaid payments for the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies group in Natchez rose by $65,525, or 0%, over the five years leading up to 2024. Expenditure growth sped up during certain intervals, with substantial annual increases in 2022 and 2023.

Although spending on these specific services was distributed throughout the area, the majority of payments were concentrated in few ZIP codes. The highest payment ZIP code in 2024 was 71456, which reached $65,525. In total, this ZIP code represented 100% of Medicaid payments under the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category in Natchez that year.

A small subset of individual billing codes accounted for most of the Medicaid payments within this service grouping.

Between 2024 and 2023, Medicaid payments in Natchez linked to the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category increased by 57%, compared with a 51.4% growth rate for claims across all Medicaid categories in the city over the same time frame.

Data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services indicate that combined Medicaid expenditures totaled about $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, or around 18% of overall U.S. health care spending, sharply up from approximately $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This rise equates to about 40% growth over several years, driven mainly by larger enrollment numbers and higher utilization during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget acts, such as those signed by the Trump administration, have proposed cuts to federal Medicaid funding and seek to alter the program’s structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is projected to decrease federal Medicaid allocations by more than $1 trillion over a decade and includes measures such as work requirements and higher cost sharing, which could reduce coverage and funding for some individuals. These policy changes are expected to move greater financial responsibility to the states and limit increases in federal Medicaid spending, though 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.