Charles City Medicaid expenditures for alcohol, drug abuse treatment hit $7,013 in 2024

Data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database shows Medicaid providers in Charles City billed $7,013 in 2024 for services grouped under the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category. This figure represents a 669.8% jump compared to 2023, when claims for similar services totaled $911.

Medicaid, a public health insurance program managed by the states and funded through a partnership between federal and state governments, serves low-income individuals, families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities. It remains a central component of the U.S. health care system.

As Medicaid draws on public funds, changes in community-based billings indicate how health care dollars are distributed locally.

The “Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment” classification covers a range of Medicaid-billed services, grouped by the type of care and defined using standardized HCPCS and CPT code clusters. This analysis assigned each billing code to a single service group based on code prefixes and ranges to accurately compare and rank related services while avoiding duplication.

Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment was the ninth-largest category for Medicaid spending in Charles City in 2024, despite broader increases across multiple services.

At the statewide level, the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category ranked first in Iowa for total Medicaid payments in 2024.

Across the five years before 2024, Medicaid reimbursements for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment in Charles City rose by $4,818, or 40.7%. This growth quickened in some years, with sharp annual increases seen in both 2023 and 2022.

Payments for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment in Charles City were distributed citywide, though most funds were concentrated in a small number of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 50616 had the largest Medicaid payments for this service at $7,012. That one ZIP code represented 100% of all city payments for the category during the year.

For this care category, Medicaid expenditures were mainly associated with a small selection of billing codes.

Considered against all Medicaid service groups in Charles City, payments for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment rose by 669.8% between 2023 and 2024, while all Medicaid claims citywide increased by 13.9% during the same timeframe.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported combined federal and state Medicaid spending reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, representing nearly 18% of the nation’s total health expenditures and rising sharply from around $613.5 billion in 2019, ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The difference marks a roughly 40% increase in just several years, primarily the result of expanded Medicaid enrollment and higher use during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget enactments during the Trump administration involved major proposals designed to reduce federal Medicaid contributions and alter its structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” passed into law in 2025, is expected to decrease federal Medicaid funding by over $1 trillion in the coming decade and establish new policies—including work requirements and higher cost-sharing—that could limit coverage and federal support for some beneficiaries. These measures may push greater costs onto states and limit federal Medicaid program growth while the system continues to serve tens of millions of Americans.

Note: HCPCS codes are provided as category context. In this analysis, category totals and service rankings reflect standardized groupings, not individual billing codes.

Details cited originate from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. The original source material is available here.