Harlowton Medicaid payments for surgery services reach $178 in 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Harlowton billed $178 for services classified under the Surgery category, figures from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database show. This amount is up 2.9% compared with 2023, when claims for the same services totaled $173.

Medicaid is a public insurance program administered by each state and funded jointly by state and federal governments. It provides coverage for low-income families and individuals, seniors, children, and people with disabilities, making it one of the central components of the U.S. health care system.

Because taxpayer dollars support Medicaid payments, local trends in billing highlight how public health care money is distributed throughout a community.

The “Surgery” category includes a selection of Medicaid-billed services grouped by the type of care, according to standardized HCPCS and CPT code classifications. In this review, each billing code was placed in a single service category based on consistent code prefixes and number ranges, grouping related services without double-counting and maintaining accurate order over time.

Even though Medicaid spending grew across several service groups, Surgery held the fourth position among Harlowton’s total Medicaid payments in 2024.

Statewide in Montana, the Surgery category was ranked 14th by payment total in 2024.

For the five years leading up to 2024, Medicaid payments associated with Surgery in Harlowton rose by $77, or 76.6%. Certain periods, especially 2021 and 2022, saw the largest year-over-year gains.

Payments for Surgery services were distributed across different parts of the city but were concentrated within select ZIP codes. The 59036 ZIP code accounted for $178 in Medicaid payments for Surgery services in 2024. Combined, the top ZIP code represented 100.1% of all Medicaid payments connected to the Surgery category in Harlowton for the year.

Within the Surgery category, most Medicaid payments were linked to only a few specific billing codes.

Between 2024 and 2023, Medicaid payments for the Surgery category in Harlowton increased by 2.9%. By comparison, total Medicaid claims in the city across all categories grew by 90.9% over the same period.

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

This surge represents roughly 40% growth in just a few years, mainly attributable to expanded enrollment and increased utilization during and after the pandemic.

Recently passed federal budget measures under the Trump administration have included major proposals impacting Medicaid funding and structure. For example, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is projected to cut more than $1 trillion from federal Medicaid funding over the next decade, with new policies like work requirements and higher cost-sharing that may reduce coverage or funding for some. Such changes are expected to shift more costs to states and could limit future federal support for Medicaid, even as the program continues to cover 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.