Ilion Medicaid bills for ambulance and transport services climb to $151,351 in 2024

Ilion Medicaid providers billed $151,351 in 2024 for Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This amount represents an increase of 11.3% compared to 2023, when claims for the same service type totaled $136,021.

Medicaid, a public health insurance program administered by states and funded by both federal and state governments, serves low-income individuals, families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities. It is one of the nation’s largest health care programs.

Since Medicaid payments are made with taxpayer dollars, fluctuations in billing totals reflect shifts in how community public health funds are spent.

The “Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies” category encompasses a range of Medicaid-billed offerings grouped by care type and defined by standard HCPCS and CPT code ranges. For the analysis, each billing code was assigned to a single category using consistent code groupings, ensuring related services were evaluated together without double counting and with accurate tracking across years.

In 2024, Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies was the leading Medicaid spending category in Ilion based on total payment volume, even as spending rose in other service categories as well.

Statewide, this same category ranked eighth by total Medicaid outlays for New York in 2024.

Looking back over the five years ending in 2024, Medicaid payments for Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies in Ilion grew by $75,189, or 98.7%. Some years showed larger increases, with notable single-year jumps in 2020 and 2023.

Payments for ambulance and transport services were distributed throughout Ilion, but in 2024, billing was highly concentrated within a small number of ZIP codes. ZIP code 13357, for example, accounted for $151,350, making up 100% of Medicaid payments for this category in the city that year.

Within this service group, Medicaid spending was heavily focused on a small selection of billing codes.

Between 2023 and 2024, Ilion’s Medicaid spending for Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies increased by 11.3%, while for all Medicaid claim categories in the city, the change was 28.7% during the same interval.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, federal and state Medicaid spending reached approximately $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, making up about 18% of total U.S. health costs. That is a substantial jump from the roughly $613.5 billion recorded in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This increase, about 40% over a few years, was largely due to expanded Medicaid enrollment and greater service usage during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget measures under the Trump administration introduced significant efforts to decrease federal Medicaid spending and change program structure. For instance, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is expected to cut over $1 trillion from the federal Medicaid budget over 10 years. It also brings policies such as work requirements and higher cost-sharing that may reduce coverage or funding for some recipients, shifting more responsibility and expenses to states even as Medicaid continues to insure millions nationwide.

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.