Baxter Medicaid payments for Evaluation and Management services surge 408.5% in 2024

In 2024, providers in Baxter billed $33,036 to Medicaid for services in the Evaluation and Management category, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This represents an increase of 408.5% compared with the prior year, when claims for these services totaled $6,497.

Medicaid, administered by the states and funded jointly with federal and state resources, provides health coverage for low-income people, older adults, children, and individuals with disabilities, making it a key component of the nation’s health care system.

Since Medicaid payments are sourced from taxpayers, shifts in billing volumes locally highlight how public health care funds are used in Baxter.

The “Evaluation and Management” grouping covers a range of Medicaid-billed services, determined by care type and organized under standardized HCPCS and CPT code ranges. For this report, each billing code was assigned to one service group using consistent prefixes and number ranges so that related services could be tracked together without double counting, maintaining accurate historical rankings.

Although Medicaid spending increased for several service types, Evaluation and Management led all categories in Baxter for total Medicaid payments in 2024.

Evaluation and Management was the second-ranked Medicaid payment category statewide in Tennessee in 2024.

From 2020 to 2024, Medicaid payments for the Evaluation and Management category in Baxter went up by $10,230, or 44.9%. The rate of growth accelerated at certain intervals, with notable year-over-year increases in 2020 and 2021.

While Evaluation and Management services were billed throughout the city, the majority of payments were concentrated in a few ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 38544 alone accounted for $33,035—amounting to 100% of local Medicaid payments in this category in Baxter for the year.

Spending within the category was concentrated among only a handful of billing codes.

For perspective, Baxter saw a 408.5% jump in Medicaid payments for Evaluation and Management from 2023 to 2024. This compares to a 673.7% increase across all Medicaid claim categories during the same time.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data show that combined federal and state Medicaid expenditures reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, making up approximately 18% of total U.S. health care spending. That is a significant rise from around $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This increase equates to about 40% growth over several years, primarily due to higher enrollment and increased care utilization during and after the pandemic era.

Recent federal budget measures enacted during the Trump administration introduced major proposals for reducing Medicaid funding and restructuring the program. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, aims to cut over $1 trillion from federal Medicaid spending over the next decade, adding work requirements and cost sharing provisions that may reduce eligibility and funding for certain groups. These policies are expected to transfer more financial responsibility to states and restrict federal Medicaid spending growth, even as millions of Americans continue to rely on the program.

Note: HCPCS codes are displayed for informational purposes within the category. Totals and rankings are based on standardized service groupings, not individual billing codes.

All data in this report comes from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. You can access the original source here.