Sterling providers billed $2.8 million to Medicaid for alcohol and drug abuse treatment in 2024

Sterling Medicaid providers submitted $2,831,128 in claims for services within the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category in 2024, based on data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. The total represents a 178% rise from 2023, when providers filed $1,018,374 in claims for the same services.

Medicaid is a state-managed health insurance program with joint federal and state funding, providing coverage for 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 system, as described by the Commonwealth Fund.

Since Medicaid payments come from taxpayer funding, local changes in billing levels help illustrate how public health care dollars are distributed throughout a community.

The Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category includes services identified by standardized HCPCS and CPT code groupings. For this report, each billing code was assigned to a single service category using uniform code prefixes and numeric ranges, allowing for evaluation of related services together and helping avoid double-counting while maintaining accurate historical rankings.

While overall Medicaid spending rose across numerous categories, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment placed third among Medicaid payment categories in Sterling for 2024 by total disbursements.

Statewide, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment was the second-largest Medicaid payment category in Virginia for 2024.

Between 2019 and 2024, Medicaid spending for the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category in Sterling increased by $2,236,625, marking a 376.2% rise. Some of the largest year-to-year increases were noted in 2022 and 2021.

Though spending was distributed citywide, Medicaid payments for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment services were concentrated in a few ZIP codes. ZIP code 20166 accounted for $2,268,008 and ZIP code 20165 for $563,119 in 2024. Together, these areas made up 100% of Medicaid payments for this treatment category in Sterling that year.

Payments within the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category were also focused among a select group of billing codes.

For additional context, Medicaid payments for this category in Sterling grew 178% between 2024 and 2023, while overall Medicaid claim categories in the city saw a 38.4% change during the same period.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported that combined state and federal Medicaid spending stood at about $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, making up roughly 18% of all national health expenditures—up sharply from $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This reflects growth of approximately 40% in just a few years, due in large part to higher enrollment and increased service utilization during and following the pandemic.

Recent federal budget measures under the Trump administration included notable proposals to curtail federal Medicaid funding and restructure the program. For instance, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which became law in 2025, is expected to cut federal Medicaid spending by over $1 trillion over a decade, introducing policies such as work requirements and greater cost-sharing that may restrict funding and coverage for certain enrollees. These changes are likely to place a greater funding burden on states and restrict future growth of federal Medicaid contributions, even as the program continues to serve tens of millions of people nationwide.

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.