Zapata Medicaid spending rises to $8.2 million for Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) in 2024

Providers in Zapata submitted Medicaid claims totaling $8,196,123 for services in the Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) category during 2024, data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database shows. This represents a 29% increase from the prior year, when $6,353,677 was billed for the same services.

Medicaid is a government health insurance program run by individual states and financed jointly by state and federal governments. It provides coverage to low-income families and individuals, children, seniors and people with disabilities, ranking among the largest components of the U.S. health care system.

As Medicaid relies on taxpayer funding, local billing trends reflect the allocation of public health care spending in a specific area.

The “Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare)” category encompasses a selection of Medicaid billings, grouped by the type of health care delivered according to standardized HCPCS and CPT code sets. Each code in this analysis was assigned to only one service group, using consistent numeric prefixes and code ranges, which allowed similar services to be organized together for accurate tracking and comparison year over year.

Despite an increase in spending across several service lines, Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) represented the top Medicaid payment category in Zapata during 2024.

Statewide in Texas, the Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) category also led all Medicaid payment categories by total disbursements in 2024.

Over the five years before 2024, Medicaid spending for the Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) category in Zapata rose by $7,081,633, up 635.4%. The rate of increase was especially notable in 2020 and 2021.

While funding for Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) services reached various parts of Zapata, it was largely concentrated within a limited cluster of ZIP codes. The highest Medicaid payment went to ZIP code 78076 in 2024, with billings totaling $8,196,123. This ZIP code accounted for 100% of Zapata’s total Medicaid claims in the Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) category that year.

Medicaid payment distribution within the Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) category was also highly concentrated among a small number of specific billing codes.

Comparatively, Zapata’s Medicaid payments for Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) grew by 29% from 2023 to 2024, outpacing the 16.1% increase recorded for all Medicaid claim categories in the city.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined Medicaid spending at the federal and state levels reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, or nearly 18% of total national health costs. That compares to $613.5 billion in 2019, before the pandemic.

This uptick amounts to roughly 40% growth in just a few years, spurred primarily by larger enrollment and greater use of services during and following the pandemic.

Federal budget legislation passed under the Trump administration has incorporated numerous major changes to reduce the federal share of Medicaid and modify how the program is managed. For instance, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,”, enacted in 2025, is estimated to cut more than $1 trillion in federal Medicaid spending over the coming decade and brings in work requirements and higher cost-sharing, changes that could limit coverage and support for certain recipients. The expected result is shifting greater cost responsibility onto states and placing limits on growing federal Medicaid commitments, although the program continues to assist tens of 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.