In 2024, New Castle Medicaid providers billed $660,625 for services under the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This total represents a 30.4% increase from 2023, when $506,668 in claims were submitted for the same category.
Medicaid, a public health insurance program that operates at the state level and is funded jointly by the federal and state governments, provides coverage for low-income individuals and families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities, making it one of the largest health care programs in the United States.
Because Medicaid funding comes from taxpayers, fluctuations in local billing provide insight into the allocation of public health care expenditures within a community.
The Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category includes a set of Medicaid-billed services defined by care types, organized through standardized HCPCS and CPT code groupings. For analysis, billing codes were grouped into a single service category using uniform code prefixes and numeric ranges, to allow for accurate comparison and avoid duplicate counts.
Although spending with Medicaid increased across various categories, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment ranked as the fifth-largest by total Medicaid payments in New Castle for 2024.
Statewide, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment ranked fourth in Delaware by total Medicaid payments for 2024.
Looking at the five years prior to 2024, Medicaid payments for the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category in New Castle grew by $252,497, a 61.9% increase. Certain periods, including 2023 and 2020, saw especially strong year-over-year growth.
While Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment services were delivered citywide, Medicaid payments were heavily concentrated in a few ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 19720 alone accounted for $660,625 in payments, making up 100% of New Castle’s total for this category.
Within this category, a small subset of individual billing codes constituted the majority of Medicaid payments.
Comparatively, Medicaid payments in New Castle for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment rose by 30.4% from 2023 to 2024, while the total for all Medicaid claim categories in the city grew by 31% during the same period.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, federal and state Medicaid spending combined reached approximately $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, representing about 18% of total national health expenditures. This is up from roughly $613.5 billion in 2019, ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The growth reflects a rise of about 40% in several years, mainly due to expanded enrollment and increased service use during and after the pandemic.
Recent federal budgeting measures enacted under President Trump have included major proposals to reduce federal Medicaid funding and reshape the program. For instance, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, aims to cut more than $1 trillion from federal Medicaid spending over the next 10 years and introduces policies such as work requirements and higher cost-sharing that could decrease coverage and funds for certain beneficiaries. These shifts are expected to place a greater cost burden on states and slow the growth of federal Medicaid funding, even as the program keeps serving tens of millions of Americans.
| Year | Total Medicaid Payments | % Change From Previous Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $408,128 | 41.2% |
| 2021 | $263,338 | -35.5% |
| 2022 | $153,955 | -41.5% |
| 2023 | $506,668 | 229.1% |
| 2024 | $660,625 | 30.4% |
| Rank | Category | Medicaid Payments | Share of City Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) | $49,981,168 | 67.3% |
| 2 | National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies | $18,835,023 | 25.4% |
| 3 | Durable Medical Equipment | $1,605,018 | 2.2% |
| 4 | Medical And Surgical Supplies | $914,281 | 1.2% |
| 5 | Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment | $660,625 | 0.9% |
| 6 | Medicine Services and Procedures | $566,328 | 0.8% |
| 7 | Procedures / Professional Services | $447,548 | 0.6% |
| 8 | Evaluation and Management | $412,273 | 0.6% |
| 9 | Enteral and Parenteral Therapy | $240,308 | 0.3% |
| 10 | Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies | $191,557 | 0.3% |
| 11 | Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) | $185,771 | 0.3% |
| 12 | Anesthesia | $122,025 | 0.2% |
| 13 | Vision Services | $36,131 | <0.1% |
| 14 | Hearing Services | $31,404 | <0.1% |
| 15 | Surgery | $20,601 | <0.1% |
| 16 | Pathology and Laboratory Procedures | $3,368 | <0.1% |
| HCPCS Code | Description | Medicaid Payments | Claims |
|---|---|---|---|
| H0020 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $470,928 | 12 |
| H0045 | Respite not-in-home per diem | $145,993 | 2 |
| H0035 | Mh partial hosp tx under 24h | $41,095 | 2 |
| H0004 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $2,607 | 6 |
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.
