Medicaid spending on ambulance and transport services in Mauston rises 72% in 2024

Providers in Mauston billed Medicaid $148,524 for services under the Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies category in 2024, based on data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This reflected a 72% boost compared with 2023, when claims for similar services totaled $86,356.

Medicaid is a public insurance program administered by states and funded jointly by state and federal governments. It provides coverage for low-income individuals and families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities, making it one of the biggest components of the U.S. health care system.

Since Medicaid payments are supported by taxpayers, fluctuations in local billing shed light on how public health funds are deployed within the community.

The “Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies” category groups Medicaid-billed services identified by the care provided, with classifications based on standard HCPCS and CPT code sets. For this report, billing codes were each matched to one service category according to consistent prefixes and numerical ranges, allowing services to be tracked together while avoiding duplicate counting and maintaining data accuracy over time.

Despite an uptick in Medicaid payments across a range of service categories, Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies held the sixth spot by total Medicaid payments in Mauston in 2024.

Across Wisconsin, this category ranked eighth by overall Medicaid payment volume in 2024.

Over the five years preceding 2024, Medicaid spending connected to the Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies category in Mauston climbed by $115,531, or 350.2%. Certain years, notably 2021 and 2020, saw especially strong year-over-year gains.

Medicaid spending for Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies was distributed across the city but primarily concentrated in a small number of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 53948 accounted for $148,523 of Medicaid payments for this category, representing 100% of the payments in Mauston that year.

A small subset of individual billing codes also saw most of the Medicaid payments within the Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies category.

For comparison, Medicaid payments linked to the Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies category in Mauston rose 72% between 2024 and 2023, while all Medicaid claims citywide increased by 15.7% in the same time span.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined federal and state Medicaid expenses reached about $871.7 billion for the 2023 fiscal year, making up around 18% of all U.S. health spending—a significant rise from roughly $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This increase represents approximately 40% growth in just a few years, largely due to expanded enrollment and above-average utilization during and following the pandemic years.

Recent federal budget acts passed under the Trump administration introduced major proposals to scale back federal Medicaid contributions and change the program model. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is expected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by more than $1 trillion in the next decade, and impose policies—including work requirements and higher cost-sharing—that could curb coverage and federal funding for some eligible people. Those changes are likely to place more financial responsibility on states and slow federal Medicaid growth at a time when the program continues to cover many millions of Americans.

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.