Laurel Medicaid spending on Temporary National Codes rises 9% in 2024

Laurel Medicaid providers submitted $723,296 in claims for services within the Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) category in 2024, based on information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This represents a 9% rise from 2023, when $663,587 was billed for the same service category.

Medicaid, a state-administered program with joint federal and state funding, provides health coverage for low-income residents, seniors, children and people with disabilities, making it a central component of the U.S. health system. More information on Medicaid financing can be found here.

Since Medicaid funding is sourced from taxpayers, fluctuations in local billing reflect how community health care resources are allocated.

The “Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare)” category encompasses a set of Medicaid-billed services organized by types of care, using standard HCPCS and CPT code groupings. For reporting purposes, codes were matched to a single service category based on prefixes and number ranges, which allows for comparable analysis of related services, accurate rankings and prevents duplicated counts over time.

While overall Medicaid expenditures increased across several service lines, Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) ranked as the eighth largest by total Medicaid payments in Laurel for 2024.

Statewide in Mississippi, the Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) service group ranked second in Medicaid payments in 2024.

Between 2019 and 2024, Laurel’s Medicaid payments in this category grew by $263,818, or 57.4%. There were significant annual spending increases during some periods, particularly in 2023 and 2022.

Though spending was distributed among providers across Laurel, Medicaid payments in the Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) category were largely concentrated in specific ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 39440 accounted for $723,296—representing 100% of the city’s total Medicaid spending for this category in that year.

Spending within the Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) category also focused on only a small number of billing codes.

By comparison, payments for the Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) category increased by 9% between 2024 and 2023 in Laurel, whereas all Medicaid claim categories together saw a 12.7% change over the same span.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined state and federal Medicaid expenditures totaled around $871.7 billion during fiscal 2023, equaling approximately 18% of national health care spending. This marks a rapid rise from about $613.5 billion in 2019, before the pandemic.

This change amounts to about 40% overall growth in a few years, fueled largely by both increases in enrollment and greater use of services during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent federal budget actions under the Trump administration introduced proposals to limit federal Medicaid funding and restructure benefits. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” passed in 2025, is expected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by over $1 trillion in the next decade and brings policy changes such as new work mandates and higher cost-sharing, which could decrease coverage and support for some recipients. These shifts are set to place more responsibility on states for Medicaid funding, even as the program continues to assist 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.