Alcohol and drug abuse treatment leads Thatcher’s Medicaid spending with $702,644 in 2024

Medicaid providers in Thatcher reported $702,644 in billings for services considered Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment in 2024, based on figures from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This total was up 6.8% from 2023, when claims for the same services reached $657,673.

Medicaid is a state-administered public health insurance initiative, jointly funded by the federal and state governments, as explained by the Commonwealth Fund. The program serves low-income individuals and families, seniors, children and people with disabilities, and is among the largest parts of the nation’s health care infrastructure.

Since Medicaid funding originates from taxpayers, shifts in local billing patterns help illustrate how public health care spending is distributed in each community.

The “Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment” category encompasses Medicaid-billed services grouped together by care type using standardized HCPCS and CPT code classifications. In this data set, each billing code was attributed to a single service group based on specific code prefixes and number ranges. This approach enables the aggregation of related treatments, avoids overlap, and allows for accurate rankings over time.

Although Medicaid outlays grew across several service categories, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment was the largest by total Medicaid reimbursement in Thatcher for 2024.

Statewide in Arizona, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment placed fourth among Medicaid payment categories for the year.

During the five years ending in 2024, Medicaid payments for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment in Thatcher rose by $374,496, or 114.1%. Spending growth accelerated at certain points, with notable increases from year to year observed in 2023 and 2020.

Within Thatcher, Medicaid dollars for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment services were distributed throughout the city but were mainly concentrated in a small set of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 85552 saw the highest Medicaid payment total for these treatments, with $702,643 billed. That ZIP code alone accounted for all Medicaid payments in the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category in Thatcher that year.

Spending within this category was also focused among a small number of billing codes.

To put this in context, payments tied to Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment in Thatcher rose by 6.8% from 2023 to 2024. This outpaced the 3.2% change observed for all Medicaid claim categories in Thatcher during the same timeframe.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported that federal and state Medicaid spending totaled roughly $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023. This made up close to 18% of all national health expenditures, a significant increase from approximately $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 public health emergency.

This represents a nearly 40% increase over a few years, largely attributed to greater enrollment and higher usage of services during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget laws signed during the Trump administration featured proposals to limit federal Medicaid funds and change the program’s structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, aims to reduce federal Medicaid spending by more than $1 trillion over the next ten years and includes new measures such as work requirements and higher cost-sharing, which could lower coverage and federal funding for certain recipients. States are expected to bear more of the cost burden as growth of federal Medicaid dollars slows, though the program continues to cover millions of Americans.

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.