Medicaid providers in Altus billed $3,342 for hearing services in 2024, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This amount was 2.6% higher than in 2023, when $3,257 was claimed for the same category of services.
Medicaid is a state-operated health insurance program, jointly funded by federal and state governments, that provides coverage to low-income individuals and families, seniors, children, and those with disabilities. It is a key component of the U.S. health care infrastructure.
Since Medicaid is funded by taxpayers, trends in local billing reflect how community health care resources are distributed.
The “Hearing Services” category encompasses Medicaid-billed services identified by the type of care, defined by standardized HCPCS and CPT billing codes. For this report, billing codes were assigned to a single service group based on consistent code patterns and number ranges, which allowed for tracking and ranking related services accurately over time without duplication.
Even as Medicaid disbursements rose across a range of service groups, Hearing Services was the third-highest by total Medicaid payments in Altus for 2024.
At the state level, Hearing Services placed 26th among all Medicaid service categories in Arkansas by total payment for 2024.
Across the five-year span before 2024, Medicaid reimbursements linked to Hearing Services in Altus showed an overall increase of $3,342, or 0%. Some years, including 2022, saw sharper increases compared to other years.
Payments for hearing services were not evenly distributed citywide, but instead concentrated mostly in a few ZIP codes. For 2024, ZIP code 72821 alone was responsible for $3,341 in Medicaid hearing service claims, accounting for 100% of category payments in Altus that year.
Within the Hearing Services group, payments were mostly tied to a small group of specific billing codes.
To compare, Altus saw Medicaid payments in the Hearing Services category rise 2.6% from 2023 to 2024, while all Medicaid claim categories in the city climbed 14.5% over the same interval.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, federal and state Medicaid expenditures reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, accounting for around 18% of national health spending—an increase from $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
This jump is about 40% over a few years, largely due to increased enrollment and higher usage during and after the pandemic.
Recent federal budget actions during the Trump administration introduced several significant changes to federal Medicaid funding. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed in 2025, is expected to reduce federal Medicaid funding by more than $1 trillion over the next decade and introduces measures like work requirements and more cost-sharing, which may reduce coverage and funding for certain enrollees. These changes are likely to shift more financial responsibility to states while restricting federal Medicaid expansion, even as the program continues serving millions of Americans.
| Year | Total Medicaid Payments | % Change From Previous Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | $4,555 | 282.8% |
| 2023 | $3,257 | -28.5% |
| 2024 | $3,341 | 2.6% |
| Rank | Category | Medicaid Payments | Share of City Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Medicine Services and Procedures | $128,265 | 94.9% |
| 2 | Evaluation and Management | $3,491 | 2.6% |
| 3 | Hearing Services | $3,341 | 2.5% |
| HCPCS Code | Description | Medicaid Payments | Claims |
|---|---|---|---|
| V5008 | Hearing screening | $3,341 | 1 |
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.
