Cedar Falls Medicaid spending for durable medical equipment increases 17.6% in 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Cedar Falls billed $17,994,532 for services within the Durable Medical Equipment category, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This figure reflects a 17.6% rise compared with 2023, when the total was $15,300,347 for claims in the same service category.

Medicaid, a state-run public health insurance program jointly funded by state and federal governments, covers individuals and families with low incomes, seniors, children, and people with disabilities. The program represents one of the largest segments in the U.S. health care system. More on funding is available at the Commonwealth Fund.

Since Medicaid payments are taxpayer-funded, shifts in local billing amounts indicate how public health care resources are distributed in specific communities.

The “Durable Medical Equipment” category includes Medicaid-billed services grouped by care type using standardized HCPCS and CPT code groupings. In this analysis, each billing code was categorized into a single service grouping with consistent code prefixes and numeric ranges to help prevent double counting and ensure ranking accuracy over time.

Durable Medical Equipment was the largest category for Medicaid payments in Cedar Falls in 2024, though Medicaid spending increased in several categories overall.

Statewide in Iowa, Durable Medical Equipment was the eighth-highest category for Medicaid payments in 2024.

In the five years ahead of 2024, Cedar Falls saw Medicaid payments related to Durable Medical Equipment climb by $14,088,037, an increase of 360.6%. There were periods of faster growth, with notable year-on-year jumps documented in 2023 and 2022.

While spending for Durable Medical Equipment services occurred citywide, payments were concentrated in a few ZIP codes. For 2024, ZIP code 50613 accounted for $17,994,532 in Medicaid payments, making up 100% of the category’s total in Cedar Falls for the year.

Payments within the Durable Medical Equipment group tended to focus on a small set of individual billing codes.

Between 2024 and 2023, Cedar Falls Medicaid payments for Durable Medical Equipment rose 17.6%. In comparison, total Medicaid payments across all claim categories in the city increased 11.9% during the same period.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, total Medicaid spending from federal and state sources reached approximately $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, representing about 18% of U.S. health expenditures and rising sharply from $613.5 billion in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This jump equals roughly 40% growth in a few years, primarily because of expanded enrollment and increased utilization throughout and following the pandemic.

Major changes to Medicaid funding and structure were included in recent federal budget law during the Trump administration. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed in 2025, is expected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by over $1 trillion over the coming decade. The law introduces work requirements and higher cost-sharing, which could decrease coverage and funding for some enrollees. These adjustments are projected to shift more costs to individual states and reduce year-over-year growth in federal support, even as Medicaid continues to serve tens of millions 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.