$2.9 million in Medicaid payments in Saranac Lake linked to national codes for state agencies in 2024

Medicaid providers in Saranac Lake submitted $2,898,865 in claims for services under the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category in 2024, based on information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This total reflects a 35.2% increase over 2023, when these providers billed $2,143,458 for comparable services.

Medicaid, a public health insurance initiative run by states and jointly funded by both federal and state governments, provides health coverage to low-income individuals and families, older adults, children, and those with disabilities, making it a major part of the U.S. health care landscape.

Shifts in Medicaid billing at the community level indicate how public health care funds—drawn from taxes—are distributed locally.

The “National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies” category includes groups of Medicaid services, categorized by the type of care rendered and standardized by specific HCPCS and CPT code groupings. For the purposes of this review, billing codes were assigned to one service category each using unified prefixes and numeric ranges, providing a way to analyze similar services together, prevent double counting, and ensure accurate rankings over multiple years.

While Medicaid expenditures increased in several service categories, the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category was the highest in Saranac Lake for total Medicaid payments in 2024.

Statewide in New York, the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category also topped the list for overall payments during 2024.

Looking at the five years preceding 2024, Saranac Lake Medicaid payments for the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category grew by $846,359, or 41.2%. Growth rates were higher in certain years, with notable increases in both 2023 and 2022.

Although payments for services in this category were made across Saranac Lake, the funds were concentrated in a small number of ZIP codes. During 2024, ZIP code 12983 was responsible for $2,898,865 in payments, representing 100% of the city’s Medicaid funds for this category that year.

Within the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category, a few individual billing codes accounted for the majority of Medicaid payments.

To compare, Saranac Lake experienced a 35.2% rise in Medicaid spending for this specific category from 2023 to 2024, while payments across all Medicaid claim categories in the city increased by 21.5% during the same timeframe.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined federal and state Medicaid outlays reached about $871.7 billion in the 2023 fiscal year. That represented roughly 18% of overall national health expenses, a substantial increase from the approximate $613.5 billion spent in 2019 before the pandemic.

This expansion equates to a growth rate of about 40% in several years, largely due to greater enrollment and increased use during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget measures during the Trump administration featured major proposals to cut Medicaid funding and reshape the program. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is expected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by over $1 trillion in the next decade and introduces additional policies such as work obligations and higher cost-sharing, potentially narrowing benefits for some recipients. These policies may lead to increased costs for states while limiting the expansion of federal Medicaid funding, even as millions of Americans remain eligible for program coverage.

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.