In 2024, Medicaid providers in Fort Collins billed $7,916,534 for services classified in the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This represented a 5.3% uptick compared with 2023, when total claims for the category came to $7,518,988.
Medicaid is a public insurance program administered by the states and financed jointly by federal and state governments. It provides health coverage to low-income individuals and families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities, making it one of the largest segments of the U.S. health care system.
Since Medicaid payments are funded by taxpayers, variations in local billing provide insight into how public health care resources are distributed within the community.
The “Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment” classification encompasses a range of Medicaid-billed services identified by the care type using predefined HCPCS and CPT code groupings. For the purposes of this analysis, each billing code was placed into a single service category based on systematic code prefixes and numeric groupings, which allows for consistent evaluation of service types and helps maintain reliable rankings over time.
Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment was the fourth largest Medicaid payment category by total outlays in Fort Collins in 2024, even as Medicaid expenditures climbed across several categories.
Statewide in Colorado, this category was ranked third in total Medicaid payments for 2024.
Between 2019 and 2024, Medicaid payments associated with the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category in Fort Collins jumped by $6,005,020, reflecting a 314.1% increase. Spending accelerated in certain years during this period, most notably in 2021 and 2023.
Although Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment payments reached providers throughout Fort Collins, the majority of payments were concentrated in a handful of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 80525 accounted for $3,924,796, 80528 for $3,901,447, and 80524 for $90,289. Collectively, these 3 ZIP codes comprised 100% of all Medicaid payments in this service category in Fort Collins that year.
Medicaid payments were also clustered among a small number of individual billing codes within the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category.
For comparison, Fort Collins saw a 5.3% year-over-year increase in Medicaid payments for the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category between 2024 and 2023. For all Medicaid claims citywide, the increase during the same period was 5.6%.
Federal data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services show combined Medicaid spending by federal and state governments reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, representing 18% of total national health expenditures, up substantially from $613.5 billion in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.
This rise reflects an approximate 40% growth over just a few years, with expanded enrollment and increased service utilization in the pandemic and post-pandemic periods serving as key factors.
Recent federal legislation during the Trump administration brought major proposals aiming to reduce federal Medicaid funding and change the program structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is expected to cut federal Medicaid spending by more than $1 trillion over 10 years while adding policies like work requirements and higher cost-sharing, potentially decreasing coverage and federal funding for some participants. These changes are projected to shift more responsibility to states and might slow the growth of federal assistance, even as Medicaid continues to serve tens of millions nationwide.
| Year | Total Medicaid Payments | % Change From Previous Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $1,911,514 | 11.9% |
| 2021 | $3,345,879 | 75% |
| 2022 | $4,901,773 | 46.5% |
| 2023 | $7,518,988 | 53.4% |
| 2024 | $7,916,534 | 5.3% |
| Rank | Category | Medicaid Payments | Share of City Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies | $25,357,054 | 34.3% |
| 2 | Evaluation and Management | $12,726,667 | 17.2% |
| 3 | Medicine Services and Procedures | $10,909,403 | 14.8% |
| 4 | Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment | $7,916,534 | 10.7% |
| 5 | Procedures / Professional Services | $7,182,961 | 9.7% |
| 6 | Dental Services | $2,060,849 | 2.8% |
| 7 | Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) | $1,698,583 | 2.3% |
| 8 | Vision Services | $1,109,854 | 1.5% |
| 9 | Radiology Procedures | $1,056,105 | 1.4% |
| 10 | Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies | $964,873 | 1.3% |
| 11 | Pathology and Laboratory Procedures | $732,144 | 1% |
| 12 | Surgery | $730,243 | 1% |
| 13 | Durable Medical Equipment | $503,737 | 0.7% |
| 14 | Medical And Surgical Supplies | $377,180 | 0.5% |
| 15 | Drugs Administered Other than Oral Method | $305,495 | 0.4% |
| 16 | Anesthesia | $208,837 | 0.3% |
| 17 | Orthotic Procedures and services | $49,006 | 0.1% |
| 18 | Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) | $16,275 | <0.1% |
| 19 | Administrative, Miscellaneous and Investigational | $8,207 | <0.1% |
| 20 | Chemotherapy Drugs | $5,903 | <0.1% |
| 21 | Temporary Codes | $17 | <0.1% |
| HCPCS Code | Description | Medicaid Payments | Claims |
|---|---|---|---|
| H0038 | Self-help/peer svc per 15min | $4,894,082 | 48 |
| H0020 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $643,129 | 13 |
| H0005 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $626,705 | 38 |
| H0004 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $540,953 | 58 |
| H0033 | Oral med adm direct observe | $196,395 | 22 |
| H0006 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $159,294 | 37 |
| H0001 | Alcohol and/or drug assess | $120,141 | 26 |
| H2011 | Crisis interven svc, 15 min | $109,852 | 14 |
| H2014 | Skills train and dev, 15 min | $96,808 | 11 |
| H0018 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $74,153 | 24 |
| H0031 | Mh health assess by non-md | $73,369 | 22 |
| H0046 | Mental health service, nos | $60,950 | 17 |
| H2019 | Ther behav svc, per 15 min | $59,664 | 11 |
| H2036 | A/d tx program, per diem | $49,444 | 2 |
| H0002 | Alcohol and/or drug screenin | $45,591 | 31 |
| H0015 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $39,556 | 14 |
| H0023 | Alcohol and/or drug outreach | $22,123 | 14 |
| H2000 | Comp multidisipln evaluation | $17,691 | 21 |
| H0011 | Alcohol and/or drug services | $15,870 | 9 |
| H0039 | Asser com tx face-face/15min | $14,954 | 11 |
Note: HCPCS codes are provided for reference within this category. The totals and rankings referenced are based on standardized service groupings rather than on the individual codes.
Data in this article is from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. The original source can be accessed here.
