Malvern sees $16,113 in Medicaid Surgery payments in 2024 as totals jump 179%

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Malvern billed $16,113 for services under the Surgery category, based on figures from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This is a 179.4% rise from 2023, when providers billed $5,766 for the same services.

Medicaid, which covers low-income Americans, families, children, seniors, and disabled persons, is a major component of the U.S. health care system. States administer the program with funding shared by state and federal governments.

Since Medicaid funds are provided by taxpayers, changes in local billing levels illustrate how health care spending is distributed within the community.

The Surgery category groups medical services based on standardized HCPCS and CPT code sets. For this analysis, each billing code was matched to one service grouping with consistent prefixes and numbers to prevent duplication and ensure year-to-year comparability across groups.

While Medicaid spending grew in several areas, Surgery ranked ninth for overall Medicaid payments in Malvern in 2024.

Statewide in Arkansas, the Surgery category held the 10th position for total Medicaid payments in 2024.

In the five years before 2024, Medicaid payments connected to Surgery in Malvern rose $14,268, totaling a 773.4% increase. Spending growth escalated at certain times, with significant annual gains in 2021 and 2023.

Spending on Surgery care in Malvern in 2024 was focused in a few ZIP codes, with ZIP code 72104 accounting for the full $16,113 of Medicaid payments tied to Surgery. The top ZIP code represented 100% of Medicaid Surgery payments for the city in that year.

Most Medicaid payments in the Surgery category were consolidated under a limited set of specific billing codes.

For reference, Malvern’s Medicaid payments for Surgery climbed by 179.4% between 2024 and 2023. This compares to a citywide increase of 18.7% for all categories of Medicaid claims during the same timeframe.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, total federal and state Medicaid expenditures reached approximately $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, representing roughly 18% of all U.S. health care spending, and a significant rise from around $613.5 billion in 2019, the year before the COVID-19 crisis.

This growth reflects nearly a 40% surge over several years, largely attributed to expanded enrollment and higher use of services during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget measures under the Trump administration have included proposals to decrease federal Medicaid support and alter the structure of the program. For instance, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is forecast to cut federal Medicaid outlays by more than $1 trillion over 10 years, introducing efforts such as work requirements and increased participant cost-sharing that could reduce access and shift more costs onto states.

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.