Troy sees 5.1% growth in Medicaid spending for ambulance, transportation services in 2024

According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database, Medicaid providers in Troy billed $649,006 in 2024 for services in the Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies category. This represents a 5.1% increase from the $617,327 in claims reported in 2023 for the same category.

Medicaid, one of the largest components of the U.S. health care system, is a public insurance program administered by states and backed financially by both state and federal governments. The program serves individuals and families with low incomes, seniors, children, and people with disabilities. More information can be found on how Medicaid is funded.

Because taxpayer dollars support Medicaid, community-level payment patterns reflect how local public health expenditures are allocated.

The “Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies” category groups Medicaid-billed services according to types of care, based on standardized HCPCS and CPT code groupings. To create comparable trend data, this analysis consistently assigned billing codes to one service category using code prefixes and ranges to organize related services and maintain accurate category rankings over time without double counting.

Although several categories showed higher levels of spending, Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies placed 10th among all Medicaid payment categories in Troy for 2024.

Statewide, this category ranked eighth in New York by overall Medicaid payments for 2024.

Between 2019 and 2024, Medicaid payments for Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies in Troy rose by $222,198, or 52.1%. Some periods saw faster spending growth, especially in 2021 and 2023.

Payments for this category, while distributed citywide, were notably concentrated in a few ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 12180 reported all $649,006 in Medicaid payments related to Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies, making up 100% of the city’s total in this service group for the year.

Within this service category, a small selection of individual billing codes accounted for most Medicaid payments.

Looking at broader spending, Medicaid payments in Troy tied to Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies grew 5.1% from 2023 to 2024, compared with a 31.7% rise observed across all Medicaid categories citywide in the same timeframe.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined federal and state Medicaid expenditures reached approximately $871.7 billion in the 2023 fiscal year. This made up about 18% of overall national health spending, surging from roughly $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This increase reflects about 40% growth over several years, a trend largely driven by rising enrollment and increased demand both during and following the pandemic.

Significant federal budget legislation enacted under the Trump administration included measures aimed at reducing Medicaid spending at the federal level and restructuring the program. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which became law in 2025, is set to decrease federal Medicaid expenditures by over $1 trillion during the next decade and introduces policies such as work requirements and higher cost-sharing, potentially narrowing coverage and reducing funding for specific beneficiary groups. These adjustments are projected to transfer greater responsibility for Medicaid funding to U.S. states and limit the future scale of federal support.

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.