Medicaid paid $23,364 for COVID-19 care in Alamo in 2024

At least $23,364 in Medicaid payments were made in Alamo in 2024 for services with HCPCS codes directly tied to COVID-19, data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database shows.

Medicaid serves as a major section of the U.S. health care system, offering public health insurance to low-income individuals, families, children, seniors, and people with disabilities. The program operates through collaboration between the states and federal and state governments for funding.

Because taxpayer dollars support Medicaid, shifts in billing reflect how public health care funding is allocated within local communities.

For this report, any services marked under HCPCS codes labeled as “COVID-19” or “coronavirus” in billing records or supplemental data were designated as COVID-related. Therefore, these totals do not include pandemic care billed under broader or unrelated codes.

In comparison, Houston registered the highest amount of Medicaid COVID-19–related payments in Texas in 2024, totaling $5,684,946.

Alamo’s average Medicaid payment per provider for COVID-19 services was $7,788, which is below Texas’s average of $40,722 for similar services.

COVID-19–identified Medicaid services contributed noticeably to overall Medicaid payment growth in Alamo during the pandemic years.

Medicaid payments for all other claim types in Alamo climbed by $8,803,251 from 2020 to 2024, marking a 1,087.3% increase.

In the two years before the pandemic period, Alamo posted an average of $341,304 in annual Medicaid payments.

Data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services indicate that total federal and state Medicaid spending was about $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, accounting for roughly 18% of U.S. health care costs, which is an increase from $613.5 billion in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 outbreak.

This increase amounts to about 40% growth in only a few years, driven mainly by more people enrolling in Medicaid and greater service use during and after the pandemic period.

Major legislation passed under the Trump administration recently addressed significant federal Medicaid funding cuts and program restructuring. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is projected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by more than $1 trillion over 10 years and bring policies such as mandatory work requirements and higher cost-sharing. These could reduce Medicaid coverage and funding for some individuals. Additional costs may shift to state governments, limiting federal Medicaid contributions while the program still assists tens of millions nationwide.

Note: Figures cover only HCPCS codes labeled for COVID-19; total spending for all pandemic-related health care may be higher.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database provided the data cited in this story. To view the original source, click here.