Johnston Medicaid medicine services payments increase 7.5% to $3.8M in 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Johnston billed $3,761,764 for services in the Medicine Services and Procedures category, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. That total reflects a 7.5% increase compared with 2023, when $3,499,854 in claims were filed for the same category.

Medicaid, a public health insurance program administered by the states and funded jointly by federal and state governments, provides coverage for low-income people and families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities, making it a major component of the U.S. health care landscape.

Since taxpayer dollars support Medicaid payments, variations in community billing levels offer insight on how public health dollars are utilized locally.

The “Medicine Services and Procedures” category includes a group of Medicaid-billed services, identified by the type of care provided using standardized HCPCS and CPT code groupings. In this evaluation, each billing code was linked to a single service category via consistent code prefixes and numeric ranges, permitting a review of related services as a group while avoiding duplications and protecting data accuracy and rankings over time.

Although several Medicaid service categories experienced spending increases, Medicine Services and Procedures was third by total Medicaid payments in Johnston for 2024.

Across Iowa, Medicine Services and Procedures held the fifth spot statewide in total Medicaid payments in 2024.

Between 2019 and 2024, Medicaid payments tied to Medicine Services and Procedures in Johnston rose by $1,721,894, or 84.4%. Some periods saw accelerated growth, with sizeable year-over-year jumps in both 2021 and 2023.

While Medicaid spending for Medicine Services and Procedures occurred throughout Johnston, the majority of payments were attributed to a small number of ZIP codes. For 2024, the ZIP code with the highest Medicaid payments in this category was 50131, which accounted for all $3,761,764 spent. The highest-billed ZIP code represented 100% of all such Medicaid payments in Johnston that year.

Within the Medicine Services and Procedures category, a limited group of billing codes accounted for the bulk of Medicaid payments.

Comparatively, Medicaid payments linked to this category in Johnston rose 7.5% from 2023 to 2024, whereas citywide Medicaid claims across all categories registered a 4.5% change during the same interval.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, total state and federal Medicaid spending reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, making up roughly 18% of overall national health expenditures—a significant uptick from approximately $613.5 billion in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This growth represents an increase of roughly 40% in just a few years, mostly caused by expanded enrollment and higher usage rates during and after the pandemic period.

Recent federal budget legislation during the Trump administration proposed substantial reductions to federal Medicaid contributions and structural program changes. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is expected to lower federal Medicaid spending by more than $1 trillion over 10 years and bring new policies including work requirements and greater cost-sharing from beneficiaries. These measures could reduce coverage as well as funding for some recipients and would likely increase costs for states while limiting future growth in federal Medicaid support, even as the program continues serving tens of millions of people nationwide.

Note: HCPCS codes are presented for context within the category. The totals and category rankings in this article derive from standardized service groupings, not individual billing codes.

The information in this story is sourced from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. Access the source data here.