Medicaid payments for procedures, professional services jump 90.5% in Amarillo in 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Amarillo billed $389,497 for services within the Procedures / Professional Services category, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending data shows. This was a 90.5% jump from the $204,430 in claims for the category during 2023.

Medicaid, the nation’s public insurance program administered by states and jointly funded by federal and state governments, covers low-income families and individuals, seniors, children and people with disabilities. As one of the largest segments of the U.S. health system, it plays a critical role in access to care.

Since taxpayer funds support Medicaid payments, fluctuations in billing locally reflect how public health care funds are distributed within communities.

The Procedures / Professional Services group encompasses a range of Medicaid-billed services organized by type of care, using established HCPCS and CPT code classifications. This analysis matched each billing code to a single service type through standardized code prefixes and ranges, allowing a unified review of similar services and maintaining accuracy in category rankings without overlap.

Even though Medicaid spending climbed in several service groupings, Procedures / Professional Services finished 14th among Amarillo’s Medicaid categories by total payments for 2024.

Procedures / Professional Services also ranked 14th in Texas overall by Medicaid payments that year.

In the five years prior to 2024, Amarillo’s Medicaid payments for Procedures / Professional Services grew by $349,672, representing an 878% increase. Accelerated spending was recorded in specific periods, most notably in 2021 and 2022.

Although payments for Procedures / Professional Services were distributed throughout Amarillo, the highest dollar amounts were concentrated in a handful of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 79109 led with $343,104, followed by 79106 at $32,493 and 79103 at $13,866. These top 3 ZIP codes made up all Medicaid payments for Procedures / Professional Services in the city that year.

Within the Procedures / Professional Services grouping, Medicaid reimbursement remained focused among a select set of billing codes.

For context, Amarillo’s Medicaid payments tied to Procedures / Professional Services grew 90.5% between 2024 and 2023, while overall Medicaid claim payments in the city rose 24.3% for all categories in the same period.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, federal and state Medicaid spending together reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, or roughly 18% of total U.S. health spending—up from approximately $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This growth, around 40% in just a few years, has been fueled by increased enrollment and greater use of services throughout and following the pandemic.

Recent federal budget measures under the Trump administration have introduced major plans to reduce federal Medicaid support and make structural changes. For instance, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is anticipated to cut more than $1 trillion from federal Medicaid spending over the next decade, implementing policies such as work requirements and higher cost-sharing that may decrease coverage and reduce funding for some. These shifts are set to increase state responsibility for Medicaid funding and slow the expansion of federal funding, even as the program continues serving 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.