Kaplan Surgery-related Medicaid payments reach $2,815 in 2024

In 2024, providers in Kaplan billed $2,815 to Medicaid for services within the Surgery category, federal U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending records show. That amount is up 6.8% from 2023, when $2,635 in claims were submitted for comparable Surgery services.

Medicaid functions as a public insurance program administered by states and financially supported jointly by federal and state governments. The program serves low-income people, seniors, children and individuals with disabilities, and represents one of the largest components of the U.S. health care system.

Given that Medicaid payments derive from taxpayers, shifting billing patterns at the local level highlight the way in which community health spending is allocated.

The “Surgery” grouping reflects a set of Medicaid-billed services organized by care provided and defined by consistent HCPCS and CPT code groupings. This analysis assigned each billing code to only one primary service category, using code prefixes and number ranges, which supports tracking related services and avoiding double reporting to ensure accurate rankings over time.

Despite increased Medicaid spending across many areas, Surgery was the sixth-highest service category by Medicaid payments in Kaplan for 2024.

Statewide in Louisiana, the Surgery category placed 10th among all service types by Medicaid payment value in 2024.

During the five years before 2024, Kaplan’s Surgery-related Medicaid payments rose by $683, or 19.5%. Growth periods were especially notable in 2021 and 2022, when year-over-year spending climbed.

Although spending for Surgery services was recorded throughout Kaplan, Medicare payments in this category were concentrated in a small number of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 70548 made up the entirety of Medicaid Surgery payments, accounting for all $2,815 in the category. As a result, one ZIP code represented 100% of Kaplan’s Medicaid Surgery category payments for the year.

Within Surgery, Medicaid payments also focused on a smaller set of specific billing codes.

Comparatively, Surgery-related Medicaid payments in Kaplan increased 6.8% between 2024 and 2023. Overall, across all Medicaid service categories in the city, the change was 42.7% in the same timeframe.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, total Medicaid spending by both state and federal governments reached roughly $871.7 billion in the 2023 fiscal year, which comprised about 18% of overall U.S. health expenditure. That total marks a substantial rise from $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The difference reflects approximately 40% growth over several years, mainly due to more enrollees and greater use of health services during and following the pandemic period.

Recent federal budgetary moves under the Trump administration featured major proposals to scale back federal Medicaid payments and adjust program rules. As an example, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is projected to reduce federal Medicaid funding by more than $1 trillion over 10 years and introduces measures like work requirements and higher cost-sharing that might decrease benefits and funding for certain recipients. With these changes, more financial responsibility is expected to fall on states, while growth in federal support for Medicaid could level off, even as it continues to serve 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.