Providers in Grand Junction billed $44,295,413 to Medicaid for services categorized under Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This represents an 8.2% increase over the prior year, when $40,942,214 in claims were submitted for the same type of care.
Medicaid, a public health insurance initiative managed by states with joint federal and state funding, covers low-income individuals and families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities. This makes it one of the largest components of the U.S. health care sector. Learn more about funding at the Commonwealth Fund.
Because taxpayer dollars fund Medicaid, shifts in local billing help illustrate how public health resources are distributed within communities.
The “Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment” category encompasses a specific set of Medicaid-billed services, which are grouped by standardized HCPCS and CPT codes. In this analysis, billing codes were assigned to a single service category through consistent code ranges and prefixes, which ensures related services are considered together, prevents double counting, and supports accurate year-over-year rankings.
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment ranked as the second-highest Medicaid payment category in Grand Junction for 2024, even as Medicaid expenditures rose across various service categories.
At the statewide level, this category ranked third by total Medicaid payments in Colorado in 2024.
Comparing five years leading up to 2024, Medicaid payments for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment in Grand Junction rose by $25,691,284, or 138.1%. Notably, spending growth accelerated during certain periods, particularly in 2020 and 2021 when large year-over-year increases were recorded.
While Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment services were billed throughout the city, payments were mostly concentrated within specific ZIP codes. In 2024, the largest Medicaid payments in this category were linked to ZIP code 81506 ($23,356,556), 81501 ($15,502,617), and 81504 ($4,920,773). Combined, these 3 ZIP codes accounted for 98.8% of Medicaid payments in this service category within Grand Junction for the year.
Payments in the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category also tended to be clustered among a small number of specific billing codes.
For additional context, Medicaid payments for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment services in Grand Junction increased by 8.2% from 2023 to 2024. Across all Medicaid categories in the city during the same period, there was a 12.2% increase.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined federal and state Medicaid spending totaled about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023. This made up around 18% of overall national health expenditures, up significantly from roughly $613.5 billion in 2019, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This increase equates to about 40% growth over just a few years, primarily due to broader enrollment and higher service utilization during and after the pandemic.
Recent federal budget measures passed under the Trump administration feature large-scale proposals to decrease federal Medicaid funding and restructure the program. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is estimated to reduce federal Medicaid spending by more than $1 trillion over 10 years and implements policies such as work requirements and increased cost-sharing, potentially limiting both coverage and funding for some recipients. These shifts are likely to transfer more financial responsibility to states and may slow the rate of federal Medicaid funding growth, even as the program continues to serve tens of millions nationwide.
| Year | Total Medicaid Payments | % Change From Previous Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $18,604,128 | 78% |
| 2021 | $26,975,856 | 45% |
| 2022 | $36,953,324 | 37% |
| 2023 | $40,942,213 | 10.8% |
| 2024 | $44,295,412 | 8.2% |
| Rank | Category | Medicaid Payments | Share of City Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies | $62,223,401 | 38.8% |
| 2 | Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment | $44,295,412 | 27.6% |
| 3 | Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies | $18,106,415 | 11.3% |
| 4 | Evaluation and Management | $12,689,509 | 7.9% |
| 5 | Medicine Services and Procedures | $11,116,576 | 6.9% |
| 6 | Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) | $5,916,107 | 3.7% |
| 7 | Dental Services | $1,929,871 | 1.2% |
| 8 | Durable Medical Equipment | $1,246,444 | 0.8% |
| 9 | Vision Services | $790,800 | 0.5% |
| 10 | Surgery | $515,923 | 0.3% |
| 11 | Medical And Surgical Supplies | $498,406 | 0.3% |
| 12 | Pathology and Laboratory Procedures | $345,886 | 0.2% |
| 13 | Drugs Administered Other than Oral Method | $157,925 | 0.1% |
| 14 | Procedures / Professional Services | $153,373 | 0.1% |
| 15 | Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) | $138,178 | 0.1% |
| 16 | Radiology Procedures | $118,177 | 0.1% |
| 17 | Enteral and Parenteral Therapy | $32,617 | <0.1% |
| 18 | Anesthesia | $25,571 | <0.1% |
| 19 | Chemotherapy Drugs | $12,672 | <0.1% |
| 20 | Orthotic Procedures and services | $6,161 | <0.1% |
| 21 | Temporary Codes | $4 | <0.1% |
| HCPCS Code | Description | Medicaid Payments | Claims |
|---|---|---|---|
| H0038 | Self-help/peer svc per 15min | $27,298,685 | 78 |
| H2036 | A/d tx program, per diem | $4,785,829 | 12 |
| H0004 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $2,582,393 | 30 |
| H0005 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $1,690,292 | 33 |
| H2021 | Com wrap-around sv, 15 min | $1,500,230 | 25 |
| H0011 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $1,318,478 | 22 |
| H0020 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $1,165,563 | 20 |
| H0023 | Alcohol and/or drug outreach | $718,160 | 19 |
| H0039 | Asser com tx face-face/15min | $704,744 | 10 |
| H2019 | Ther behav svc, per 15 min | $449,986 | 46 |
| H2014 | Skills train and dev, 15 min | $338,165 | 12 |
| H0031 | Mh health assess by non-md | $334,474 | 17 |
| H2030 | Mh clubhouse svc, per 15 min | $255,685 | 11 |
| H0002 | Alcohol and/or drug screenin | $211,089 | 22 |
| H0006 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $188,552 | 28 |
| H2011 | Crisis interven svc, 15 min | $176,065 | 11 |
| H0044 | Supported housing, per month | $135,015 | 6 |
| H2027 | Psychoed svc, per 15 min | $108,055 | 10 |
| H2032 | Activity therapy, per 15 min | $81,401 | 7 |
| H0001 | Alcohol and/or drug assess | $77,132 | 16 |
Note: HCPCS codes are included for context within the category. The article’s category totals and rankings are based on consolidated service groupings, not on individual billing codes.
Data for this article was sourced from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. The original dataset is available here.
