Medicaid payments tied to National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies climb 15.3% in Harlingen for 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Harlingen billed $49,140,561 for services classified under the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This represented a 15.3% rise from 2023, when $42,633,508 was billed for the same service category.

Medicaid is a public health insurance program directed by states and funded jointly by federal and state governments. The program serves low-income people and families, seniors, children, and individuals with disabilities and stands among the largest elements of the national health care system.

Because taxpayer funding supports Medicaid, fluctuations in billing figures reveal how public health care expenditures are distributed locally.

The “National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies” group includes a specific set of Medicaid-billed services, which are determined by the care type using standardized HCPCS and CPT code categories. For this analysis, each billing code fit into a single service group based on code prefixes and numeric intervals, aligning related services for a more consistent comparison and accurate tracking over time.

While other Medicaid service groupings also showed spending upticks, National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies captured the second-largest share of Medicaid billing in Harlingen for 2024.

On a state level, Texas also ranked National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies second overall based on Medicaid disbursements in 2024.

From 2019 through 2024, Medicaid payments for this group in Harlingen jumped by $25,468,670, or 107.6%. Growth rates were especially strong in certain spans, with significant annual increases noted in 2021 and 2020.

While billing for services using these codes appeared citywide, most Medicaid dollars were concentrated in a select number of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 78550 represented $45,676,689 in payments, and 78552 accounted for $3,463,871—together composing the entire Medicaid total for this category in Harlingen that year.

Medicaid expenditures in this category were also clustered among relatively few unique billing codes.

Medicaid payments linked to this service type went up by 15.3% between 2024 and 2023, compared with a 4.2% overall rise among all Medicaid categories in Harlingen for that interval.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reports that aggregate federal and state Medicaid spending reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023. This made up approximately 18% of nationwide health spending, up from roughly $613.5 billion in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 emergency.

This jump represents an increase of around 40% within several years and was pushed higher by expanded eligibility and increased service use during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget policies passed under the Trump administration featured major proposals to cut back on federal Medicaid funding and revisit program structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is expected to decrease federal Medicaid spending by over $1 trillion in the coming ten years and incorporate requirements like work mandates and higher out-of-pocket costs, influencing access and funding for some recipients. These updates could mean higher costs for states and slow the growth of federal Medicaid spending, though the program remains a core part of U.S. health care for millions of citizens.

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.