Bethlehem Medicaid spending for Procedures / Professional Services climbs to $8,711,744 in 2024

Bethlehem Medicaid providers received $8,711,744 for services categorized under Procedures / Professional Services in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This amount marks a 34.8% rise over 2023, when the claims for the same category totaled $6,465,085.

Medicaid operates as a public insurance program managed by states and funded in partnership by federal and state governments. It serves low-income residents, seniors, children, and individuals with disabilities, making it among the nation’s largest health care programs.

Since Medicaid is funded by taxpayers, fluctuations in local billing levels illustrate how public health care funds are distributed within communities.

The Procedures / Professional Services category encompasses a range of Medicaid-billed services, defined by care type and organized by standardized HCPCS and CPT code groupings. For this analysis, each billing code was allocated to one service category using consistent code prefixes and number ranges, ensuring related services are grouped for trend analysis without duplicating counts, and maintaining accurate rankings over time.

Although Medicaid payouts climbed across several service groups, Procedures / Professional Services ranked fourth in Bethlehem for total Medicaid reimbursements in 2024.

Statewide in Pennsylvania, Procedures / Professional Services was the fifth highest category for Medicaid payments in 2024.

Between 2019 and 2024, Bethlehem’s Medicaid funding for the Procedures / Professional Services group grew by $4,351,781, an increase of 99.8%. Periods of especially strong growth were seen in 2021 and 2020.

The distribution of payments in this category was citywide but mainly concentrated in select ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 18020 accounted for $4,936,957, 18018 for $3,277,432, and 18015 for $496,278, with these 3 ZIP codes accounting for 100% of the total Medicaid spending for this group in Bethlehem.

A small number of individual billing codes accounted for most of the Medicaid payments within the Procedures / Professional Services group.

Comparing years, Bethlehem saw a 34.8% jump in Medicaid payments for the Procedures / Professional Services group from 2023 to 2024, which contrasts with a 6% change across all claim categories during the same interval.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined federal and state Medicaid expenditures totaled about $871.7 billion in the 2023 fiscal year, comprising roughly 18% of national health care spending—up significantly from $613.5 billion in 2019, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This rise equals a growth of around 40% over a few years, largely due to increased enrollment and utilization during and after the pandemic period.

Recent federal budget actions under the Trump administration included major proposals aimed at reducing federal Medicaid outlays and making structural adjustments to the program. One example, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is anticipated to cut more than $1 trillion in federal Medicaid spending over the next decade and adds provisions like work requirements and more cost-sharing, potentially restricting coverage and funding for some recipients. These policy changes are expected to shift increased costs to states and limit the rise of federal Medicaid support, while the program continues to serve millions of Americans.

Note: HCPCS codes are included for context within this group. Category totals and rankings discussed are based on service groupings rather than on specific billing codes.

Data for this article originated from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. Source data is available here.