Hotchkiss Medicaid spending on ambulance and transport services totals $5,454 in 2024

Providers in Hotchkiss billed $5,454 to Medicaid for services in the Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies category during 2024, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database reports. This represents a 17.5% rise from 2023, when billings for the same service category reached $4,643.

Medicaid, a state-administered health insurance program with federal and state funding, covers low-income individuals and families, children, seniors, and people with disabilities, making it a major component of the U.S. health care system.

Because taxpayer dollars fund Medicaid, fluctuations in local billing levels reflect how public health care money is distributed in each community.

The “Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies” designation groups services based on HCPCS and CPT coding to standardize analysis. For this data, each billing code was sorted to a single category by code prefix and range, which prevented double counting and ensured accurate yearly rankings.

Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies was the top Medicaid payment category in Hotchkiss for 2024, contributing more to local Medicaid spending than any other category.

Statewide, this category placed second in total Medicaid payments across Colorado in 2024.

Between 2019 and 2024, Hotchkiss Medicaid payments for this category rose $1,051, a 16.2% increase. Spending growth was especially strong in select years, with significant annual changes noted in both 2022 and 2022.

While payments for these services occurred throughout Hotchkiss, they remained particularly concentrated within a small number of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 81419 accounted for all Medicaid payments in this category, totaling $5,454. The leading ZIP code represented 100% of the local Medicaid spending on ambulance and transport services for the year.

The majority of these Medicaid payments were also concentrated among just a few billing codes within the transport services category.

To compare, Medicaid spending for Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies in Hotchkiss grew 17.5% from 2023 to 2024, matching the growth percentage seen in overall Medicaid claim spending in the city during that span.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reports that federal and state Medicaid spending combined reached approximately $871.7 billion for the 2023 fiscal year, representing about 18% of national health care expenditures—a sharp increase from $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This signifies a roughly 40% spending increase over several years, largely fueled by expanded enrollment and higher service utilization during and following the pandemic.

Recent federal budgets enacted under the Trump administration featured key proposals aimed at decreasing federal Medicaid support and modifying the program. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” passed in 2025, is expected to slash federal Medicaid funding by more than $1 trillion over 10 years and introduce requirements such as employment conditions and increased out-of-pocket costs, potentially reducing coverage and federal financial support for some recipients. These changes will likely raise the fiscal burden on states and slow the rate of federal Medicaid growth, even as millions remain enrolled.

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.