Medicaid spending on Procedures / Professional Services grows 8.1% in Wheeling for 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Wheeling billed a total of $1,301,350 for services categorized as Procedures / Professional Services, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This figure is up 8.1% from 2023, when providers recorded $1,203,583 in claims for these services.

Medicaid is a state-administered, jointly federally and state-funded health insurance program designed to cover low-income people, the elderly, children and individuals with disabilities, making it a major component of the U.S. health care system.

Since Medicaid funding comes from taxpayers, shifts in local billing trends reflect how public health care resources are distributed within the community.

The “Procedures / Professional Services” segment encompasses Medicaid-billed services organized by the nature of care provided, aligning with standardized groupings based on HCPCS and CPT codes. This analysis assigned each billing code to a single category using uniform code prefixes and number ranges, which allowed similar services to be grouped while preventing duplicate counts and supporting consistent rankings over multiple years.

Despite growth in several service areas, Procedures / Professional Services was ranked eighth in Wheeling by Medicaid payment totals for 2024.

Statewide in West Virginia, the category also ranked eighth for total Medicaid spending in 2024.

During the five years preceding 2024, Medicaid spending associated with Procedures / Professional Services in Wheeling rose by $1,047,106, reflecting a 411.9% increase. Significant year-over-year payment gains occurred particularly in 2021 and 2020.

While these services took place throughout Wheeling, payment activity was heavily centered in a select number of ZIP code areas. In 2024, ZIP code 26003 reported the highest Medicaid spending for Procedures / Professional Services, totaling $1,301,350. As a result, the top ZIP code represented 100% of Medicaid payments in this category for the city in 2024.

Within the Procedures / Professional Services category, Medicaid payments were focused among just a few billing codes.

For comparison, Procedures / Professional Services in Wheeling showed an 8.1% increase between 2024 and 2023, while all Medicaid claim categories in the city recorded a 10.2% overall change during that time frame.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services report that federal and state Medicaid expenditures reached approximately $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, accounting for around 18% of total national health care spending. This level marks a sharp increase from about $613.5 billion spent in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This growth reflects a roughly 40% rise over several years, largely driven by greater enrollment and increased use during and following the pandemic.

Recent changes in federal law under the Trump administration have included major proposals to decrease federal funding for Medicaid and alter the program’s structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is expected to reduce federal Medicaid expenditure by more than $1 trillion over the next decade, imposing changes such as work requirements and greater cost-sharing which could result in decreased coverage and funding for certain recipients. These adjustments are projected to shift additional costs to the states and restrict the expansion of federal support for Medicaid, even as participation remains high 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.

The information in this article originates from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. The source data are available here.