Brooks Medicaid spending on procedures and professional services surges 246% in 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Brooks submitted $1,249 in claims under the Procedures / Professional Services category, as reported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This reflects a 246% jump from 2023, when these providers billed $361 for the same services.

Medicaid is a public insurance program operated by states and co-funded by both federal and state governments. Serving low-income individuals, families, seniors, children and people with disabilities, it is a core part of the U.S. health care infrastructure.

Because Medicaid draws on taxpayer funding, fluctuations in local billing patterns demonstrate how a community’s public health care resources are used.

The Procedures / Professional Services category comprises Medicaid-billed service groupings categorized by the care provided, referencing established HCPCS and CPT code frameworks. For this review, a uniform process was used to sort codes into distinct categories, enabling analyzable groupings without double counting, and supporting consistent year-over-year comparison.

Although Medicaid costs increased across several billing categories, Procedures / Professional Services ranked fourth for total Medicaid spending in Brooks in 2024.

At the state level, the Procedures / Professional Services service group was also fourth by total Medicaid payment in Maine for 2024.

During the five years preceding 2024, Medicaid spending for Brooks on Procedures / Professional Services climbed $461, or 58.5%. Some times within that span saw steeper annual gains, as in 2022 and 2022.

Although Procedures / Professional Services payments occurred citywide, more than one ZIP code saw higher totals. In 2024, ZIP code 04921 reported the highest total with $1,249. Altogether, the top single ZIP code made up 100% of Brooks Medicaid spending in this service category for the year.

For this Medicaid service category, payments were focused on a relatively small number of specified billing codes.

To compare, Procedures / Professional Services marked a 246% year-over-year Medicaid payment increase in Brooks from 2023 to 2024, whereas the overall increase across all Medicaid categories for the city was 17.2% for the same interval.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined federal and state Medicaid spending reached approximately $871.7 billion in the 2023 fiscal year, making up about 18% of all U.S. health expenditures. This was a sharp increase from around $613.5 billion in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The growth, which is about 40% within a few years, was mainly due to enrollment expansions and greater use of services during and following the pandemic.

New federal budget bills introduced during the Trump administration contained substantial federal Medicaid reductions and program revisions. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is expected to trim more than $1 trillion in federal Medicaid outflows over 10 years and establish policies like work requirements and increased cost-sharing, impacting both coverage and funding for certain enrollees. These adjustments are anticipated to transfer additional financial responsibility to states and constrain future federal support for Medicaid—even as the program continues to assist tens of 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.