Medicaid payments for National Codes Established category in Torrance climb 8.5% in 2024

In Torrance, Medicaid providers billed $35,140,011 for services under the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category in 2024, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This represented an 8.5% rise from 2023, when claims for the same service category totaled $32,383,309.

Medicaid, a state-administered public health insurance program, is supported through combined state and federal funding. The program provides coverage to low-income individuals and families, seniors, children, and people living with disabilities, making it a significant segment of the U.S. health care landscape.

Since Medicaid is funded by taxpayers, variations in local billing illustrate the distribution of public health care dollars within a community.

The “National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies” category groups together Medicaid-billed services as defined by specific standardized HCPCS and CPT code groupings. For this report, each billing code was associated with only one service grouping by applying uniform code prefixes and number ranges, enabling an analysis of related services without double counting and supporting reliable ranking comparisons over years.

While overall Medicaid spending grew across several service groups, the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category accounted for the second-highest Medicaid payment total in Torrance in 2024.

Across California, the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category was the top service group by total Medicaid payments in 2024.

Between 2019 and 2024, Medicaid payments in Torrance linked to the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category climbed by $8,640,760, a 32.6% increase. Expenditure growth accelerated during certain intervals, with notable annual jumps in 2023 and 2021.

Though this care category was available citywide, most Medicaid payments were concentrated within a few ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 90501 accounted for $28,118,904, 90502 for $5,636,064, and 90503 for $792,524. Together, these three ZIP codes made up 98.3% of Torrance Medicaid payments in this category during the year.

Within this service category, payments were also focused on a relatively small group of individual billing codes.

Medicaid payments tied to the National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies category in Torrance rose by 8.5% from 2023 to 2024, while all Medicaid claim categories increased by 3.9% in the city during the same span.

Data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services indicate that total federal and state Medicaid spending reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, representing around 18% of the country’s health expenditures, compared with roughly $613.5 billion in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This increase amounts to a growth of about 40% over several years, fueled mainly by greater enrollment and service use during and following the pandemic.

Recent federal budget decisions under the Trump administration have featured significant proposals to scale back federal Medicaid funding and alter program structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is expected to reduce federal Medicaid outlays by more than $1 trillion during the next decade and includes policies such as work requirements and higher cost sharing, each with potential to affect coverage and funding for specific recipients. These measures could place additional costs on states and constrain the growth of federal Medicaid contributions, even as the program continues serving tens of millions.

Note: HCPCS codes appear as context within the category. The totals and rankings in this report rely on standardized service categories, not on individual billing codes.

Data for this article comes from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. The original source can be accessed here.