Surgery-related Medicaid payments in Oak Harbor rise 1.2% to $611,934 in 2024

The total amount Medicaid providers in Oak Harbor billed for services classified within the Surgery category grew to $611,934 in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This figure represents a 1.2% uptick from 2023, when providers submitted $604,708 in claims for similar services.

Medicaid is a government health insurance initiative managed by states and financed through joint federal and state funding. The program insures low-income residents, families, seniors, children, and individuals with disabilities, comprising one of the largest segments in the U.S. health care landscape.

Given that Medicaid funding is derived from taxpayers, fluctuations in local billing reflect how public health dollars are spent within a community.

The “Surgery” group includes Medicaid-billed services identified by their type of care, structured according to standard HCPCS and CPT code ranges. In this analysis, billing codes were grouped into single service categories via standard code prefixes and numbers, supporting both comparison of related services and consistency in rankings while avoiding overlapping counts from repeated codes.

While Medicaid expenditures increased for a range of categorized services, Surgery accounted for the third-highest Medicaid payment total in Oak Harbor for 2024.

Across Washington state in 2024, the Surgery category was ranked 11th by total Medicaid payments.

Between 2019 and 2024, Medicaid payments to Surgery services in Oak Harbor climbed by $242,692, an increase of 65.7%. Certain intervals showed faster growth, particularly during 2021 and 2023, where significant year-on-year gains were recorded.

Though Surgery-related Medicaid spending was distributed across Oak Harbor, payments were concentrated in a small selection of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 98277 saw the highest volume, at $611,934. This top ZIP held 100% of Surgery-category Medicaid payments in the city that year.

Payments tied to Surgery within Medicaid were also concentrated under specific billing codes.

To compare, the 1.2% growth seen in Oak Harbor’s Surgery-related Medicaid funding from 2023 to 2024 came against a backdrop of a 10.8% increase spanning all Medicaid claim categories locally over the same period.

Data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services shows that combined state and federal Medicaid spending reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, or roughly 18% of total U.S. health expenditures—a dramatic increase from $613.5 billion in 2019 before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This change marks growth of around 40% over several years, mainly fueled by an expansion in enrollment and increases in medical service utilization related to and following the pandemic.

Legislation passed under the Trump administration included high-profile proposals that restructure and lower federal Medicaid allocations. For instance, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is expected to cut federal Medicaid spending by more than $1 trillion during the next 10 years and implements policies like work requirements and added cost-sharing that may reduce benefits and funding for certain recipients. This shift is anticipated to leave more expenses with states and slow the pace of federal financial support, though Medicaid still covers millions of Americans.

Note: HCPCS codes are included for reference within this category. All category amounts and reported rankings in this story reflect services grouped under standardized billing categories, not individual service codes.

This article draws information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. You can access the original dataset here.