Medicaid payments for National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies increase 9.7% in Ridgeland in 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Ridgeland submitted $2,917,844 in claims for services classified under the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies, according to data provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This represented a 9.7% increase over 2023, when $2,659,951 in claims were filed for the same service category.

Medicaid, a state-operated public health insurance program funded jointly by federal and state governments, serves low-income families and individuals, seniors, children, and people with disabilities. It is among the largest components of the U.S. health care system.

Since Medicaid funding is sourced from taxpayers, fluctuations in local billing can signal how health care funds are distributed within communities.

The National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category consists of a range of Medicaid-billed services grouped by care type, as defined by standardized HCPCS and CPT code sets. In preparing this analysis, every billing code was placed into a single care category based on code prefixes and range, which helped organize similar services, prevent double counting, and allow for more accurate long-term trend assessment.

Although Medicaid spending grew throughout multiple categories, the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category was the leading category in Ridgeland for total Medicaid payments in 2024.

Statewide in South Carolina, the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category also ranked first by all Medicaid payment totals for 2024.

Over the five-year span ending in 2024, Medicaid payments linked to this category in Ridgeland increased by $2,522,980, or 638.9%. The pace of growth quickened during certain years, with particularly marked year-over-year increases observed in 2022 and 2023.

While these Medicaid payments were issued throughout the city for care within the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category, the funds were largely concentrated to only a few ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 29936 accounted for $2,917,844 in payments, making up 100% of the city’s payments tied to this category that year.

Additionally, Medicaid payments in this category were focused on a select group of individual billing codes.

To compare, the 9.7% jump for this category between 2024 and 2023 was higher than the 5.1% overall increase across all Medicaid claim categories in Ridgeland during the identical period.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, federal and state Medicaid spending combined reached approximately $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, making up about 18% of national health expenditures, which is a substantial rise from around $613.5 billion in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This increase equates to nearly 40% growth in just several years, largely due to rising enrollment and increased usage during and following the pandemic.

Recent federal budget laws passed during the Trump administration introduced major proposals for reducing Medicaid federal funding and reshaping the program. One example is the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, which is expected to reduce federal Medicaid outlays by more than $1 trillion over 10 years and imposes policies such as work requirements and heightened cost-sharing, potentially decreasing both coverage and funding for some recipients. These changes are projected to transfer additional costs to states and limit the growth of federal Medicaid contributions, even as millions of Americans continue to enroll in the program.

Note: HCPCS codes are included for reference within this category. Totals and rankings are based on standard service groupings, not on individual billing codes.

Data for this article came from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. The primary source material is available here.