Mora Medicaid spending on substance abuse treatment rises to $879,486 in 2024

Mora saw $879,486 in Medicaid billing for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment services during 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This reflected a 26% growth from 2023, when providers reported $698,218 in claims in this service category.

Medicaid, which is administered by states with joint funding from federal and state governments, provides health insurance coverage to low-income residents, seniors, children, and those with disabilities, establishing itself as a key part of the U.S. health care landscape. More background on its funding is available from the Commonwealth Fund.

Local billing trends illustrate how taxpayer-funded Medicaid resources are allocated at the community level.

The “Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment” classification gathers a set of Medicaid service claims based on the type of care, structured by standard HCPCS and CPT coding. This analysis matches each code to one service group using distinct prefix ranges, which groups similar services for tracking trends, avoids double-counting, and ensures accurate rankings over time.

Among all Medicaid service types, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment accounted for the highest total Medicaid payments in Mora in 2024.

Across New Mexico, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment was the fourth highest category for Medicaid spending in 2024.

For the five years leading up to 2024, Mora’s Medicaid payments for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment climbed by $459,800, representing a 109.6% increase. Growth in expenditures was most pronounced in particular years—such as 2021 and 2023—when notable year-over-year surges occurred.

Although services in the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category were available citywide, most Medicaid payments were clustered in a handful of ZIP codes. In 2024, the ZIP code reporting the largest such payments was 87732, totaling $879,485, comprising 100% of Medicaid payments for this category in Mora for the year.

The concentration extended to billing codes, as a small number of specific service codes captured most Medicaid spending within the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment group.

To put this growth in context, Medicaid claims for this category in Mora rose 26% between 2024 and 2023, whereas all Medicaid claim categories together showed a 7.2% increase locally during that period.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reports that total federal and state Medicaid outlays hit approximately $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, making up about 18% of the nation’s overall health care spending—a notable jump from $613.5 billion in 2019 prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This change marks a nearly 40% spending increase over several years, largely attributed to swelling enrollment and heightened service use during and after the pandemic.

New federal budget policies passed under the Trump administration have introduced reductions in federal Medicaid support and redesigned elements of the program. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is expected to trim over $1 trillion from federal Medicaid funding in the next decade, while new policies—such as work requirements and more cost-sharing—could reduce Medicaid enrollment and funding for select groups. Such changes likely increase fiscal pressure on states and could slow the rate of federal support, even as Medicaid remains vital for millions of Americans.

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.