North Bethesda Medicaid spending on Evaluation and Management services climbs to $421,500 in 2024

In 2024, North Bethesda Medicaid providers billed $421,500 for services classified under the Evaluation and Management category, as reported in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This figure represents a 33.8% rise over 2023, when $315,087 in claims were made for this service group.

Medicaid, a joint federal and state public insurance program, provides coverage to low-income individuals and families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities. This makes it a major component of the U.S. health care system. Funding is provided by both federal and state governments.

Since Medicaid is funded by taxpayers, shifts in billing activity locally indicate changes in how communities allocate public health care funds.

The “Evaluation and Management” category includes a grouping of Medicaid-billed services defined by care type, based on established HCPCS and CPT code ranges. For this report, each code was placed in only one service category using consistent prefixes and number ranges, ensuring that services were uniformly analyzed, double counting avoided, and category rankings remained accurate over time.

Evaluation and Management led all other Medicaid service categories by total payments in North Bethesda for 2024, outpacing other types of care.

Statewide in Maryland, Evaluation and Management placed second in total Medicaid payments during 2024.

Between 2019 and 2024, North Bethesda saw Medicaid payments for Evaluation and Management services increase by $365,989, or 659.3%. The pace of spending accelerated in certain years, with large year-over-year jumps seen in 2020 and 2022.

While payments for Evaluation and Management care reached providers throughout North Bethesda, spending was largely focused in a small number of ZIP codes. In 2024, the 20852 ZIP code alone accounted for all $421,500 in Medicaid payments for this service group in North Bethesda. The single top ZIP code made up 100% of the payments in this area for that year.

Within Evaluation and Management, only a limited set of individual billing codes captured the majority of Medicaid dollars.

In North Bethesda, payments tied to Evaluation and Management rose by 33.8% from 2023 to 2024, while total Medicaid claims across all service categories in the city rose by a larger 54.2% during the same time.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported that combined state and federal Medicaid spending reached approximately $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023. That represented nearly 18% of total national health expenditures, up significantly from $613.5 billion in 2019, prior to COVID-19.

This roughly 40% increase in spending occurred over a few years, largely due to expanded enrollment and greater health service use during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget laws under the Trump administration proposed substantial reductions for Medicaid and restructuring of the program. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is expected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by more than $1 trillion over the next decade. It introduces new work requirements and cost-sharing measures, potentially limiting benefits and shifting greater financial responsibility to the states as federal growth is capped while Medicaid continues to cover tens of millions.

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.