Wheelersburg Medicaid payments for ambulance and transport services climb 175% in 2024

Wheelersburg Medicaid providers charged $769,026 in 2024 for services in the Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies category, per data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This represented a 175% increase over 2023, which saw $279,684 in Medicaid claims for the same service grouping.

Medicaid, a public health insurance initiative, is administered by individual states and funded in partnership by federal and state governments. The program covers low-income residents, families, seniors, children, and those with disabilities, and remains a major component of the U.S. health system.

Because taxpayer resources support Medicaid payments, shifts in local expenditures highlight how community health funding is distributed.

The “Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies” group consists of Medicaid-billed services categorized by care type, with classification based on standard HCPCS and CPT code groupings. Each billing code for this report was assigned to a single service grouping using set code prefixes and number ranges, enabling analysis of related offering and consistent rankings through successive years without double reporting.

Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies was the second-highest Medicaid spending category in Wheelersburg in 2024, amid broader spending increases across service categories.

Statewide, Ohio recorded the Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies group at 11th in rank by total Medicaid payments for 2024.

In the five years ending with 2024, Wheelersburg’s Medicaid outlay for Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies grew by $769,026, or 0%. Spending acceleration occurred at various intervals, particularly with strong year-over-year growth in 2023 and 2022.

The city’s Medicaid spending on ambulance and transport services was geographically widespread but concentrated within a few ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 45694 was responsible for $769,025 in Medicaid payments for the category, representing the full share of such expenditures for Wheelersburg that year.

Payments within the Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies group were focused among a restricted set of specific billing codes.

For additional context, Medicaid payments in Wheelersburg tied to ambulance and transport services saw a 175% rise between 2024 and 2023, compared to a 13.1% year-over-year shift across all claim types in the city in the same timeframe.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined federal and state Medicaid expenditures reached approximately $871.7 billion through fiscal year 2023, about 18% of all national health spending, up significantly from roughly $613.5 billion in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 public health emergency.

This upward trend reflects growth of nearly 40% over only a few years, primarily as a result of greater enrollment and increased health care utilization during and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Recent federal budget laws enacted during the Trump administration have featured major plans to curb federal Medicaid funding and adjust the program’s structure. Notably, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” passed in 2025, is projected to reduce federal Medicaid expenditures by more than $1 trillion over 10 years, adding measures such as work requirements and additional cost-sharing that would likely lower coverage levels and limit federal financial support, shifting more responsibilities and expenses to 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.