Baker City sees 20.4% rise in Medicaid spending on durable medical equipment in 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Baker City billed $63,625 for services under the Durable Medical Equipment category, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This was a 20.4% increase over 2023, when claims for this category totaled $52,834.

Medicaid is a public health insurance initiative operated by individual states and funded by both federal and state governments. The program serves low-income people, seniors, children, and people with disabilities, making it a key component of the U.S. health care landscape.

With taxpayer funding supporting Medicaid payments, shifts in local billing demonstrate how public health care resources are distributed within communities.

The Durable Medical Equipment category consists of Medicaid-billed services grouped by care type, as defined by standardized HCPCS and CPT code sets. For this report, each billing code was attributed to one service category using established code prefixes and number ranges, enabling grouped analysis, avoiding duplication, and maintaining accurate rankings across years.

While Medicaid spending expanded in several categories, Durable Medical Equipment held the fourth highest total for Medicaid payments in Baker City for 2024.

Statewide in Oregon, the Durable Medical Equipment category ranked 11th by total Medicaid payments in 2024.

During the five years preceding 2024, Medicaid payments linked to the Durable Medical Equipment category in Baker City increased by $63,625, reflecting 0% overall growth. However, certain periods, including 2023 and 2022, experienced more rapid year-over-year increases.

Although Durable Medical Equipment spending was distributed throughout the city, Medicaid payments were predominantly concentrated within a few ZIP codes. In 2024, the top ZIP code was 97814, which accounted for $63,625. The leading ZIP code represented 100% of all local Medicaid payments for Durable Medical Equipment that year.

Within this category, Medicaid reimbursements were also highly concentrated in only a handful of individual billing codes.

In Baker City, Medicaid payments for Durable Medical Equipment grew by 20.4% from 2023 to 2024, surpassing the 10% growth rate across all Medicaid claim categories in the same period.

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services data show that combined federal and state Medicaid spending totaled about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, or approximately 18% of all national health expenditures, which is a sharp increase from about $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This upward trend reflects roughly 40% growth over several years, largely attributed to higher enrollment and increased utilization during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget laws enacted by the Trump administration included proposals to reduce federal Medicaid allocations and restructure the program. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which became law in 2025, is expected to cut federal Medicaid funding by more than $1 trillion over the coming decade and to introduce elements such as work requirements and greater cost-sharing, with the potential to reduce coverage and funding for some recipients. These changes are projected to shift a greater financial responsibility to states and restrict federal Medicaid support growth, although the program will continue to serve tens of millions of people nationwide.

Note: HCPCS codes are provided to illustrate the category. Total amounts and rankings reported here rely on standardized groupings rather than individual billing codes.

The information in this report is sourced from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. The complete source data is available here.