Albuquerque Medicaid spending on alcohol and drug abuse treatment rises 0.9% in 2024

Albuquerque Medicaid providers billed a total of $89,324,398 for services under the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category in 2024, as reported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This represented a 0.9% uptick compared to 2023, when claims for these services reached $88,516,636.

Medicaid, a government health insurance program administered by states and funded by both federal and state governments, covers low-income individuals and families, seniors, children and people with disabilities. It is one of the nation’s largest health care programs.

Since Medicaid is funded by taxpayers, changes in local billing levels indicate how community health care funding is distributed.

The Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment category covers a selection of Medicaid-billed services, defined by specific care types using uniform HCPCS and CPT code groupings. For this report, each billing code was assigned to a single service category via consistent code prefixes and ranges, ensuring related services are grouped together accurately while preventing double counting and supporting correct rankings over time.

While spending increased for multiple service groups, Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment was the fourth-largest Medicaid payment category in Albuquerque in 2024.

Statewide in New Mexico, this category also placed fourth by total Medicaid payments in 2024.

From 2019 through 2024, Medicaid payments for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment in Albuquerque climbed by $24,315,253, or 37.4%. Growth in spending accelerated at times, with notable year-over-year increases in 2020 and 2023.

Spending for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment services was distributed citywide, but most payments were concentrated in a few ZIP codes. The highest totals were in 87102 at $22,152,702, 87108 at $17,386,779, and 87110 at $15,754,891. Combined, these top 3 ZIP codes accounted for 61.9% of Albuquerque’s Medicaid payments in this service category in 2024.

Within the overall category, Medicaid payments were focused among a relatively small group of billing codes.

In Albuquerque, the 0.9% increase for Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment Medicaid payments between 2024 and 2023 was notably lower than the 9.8% growth seen across all local Medicaid claim categories during the same period.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, total state and federal Medicaid spending reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023. That equaled roughly 18% of the nation’s health expenditures, up significantly from the $613.5 billion reported in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This increase marks growth of about 40% in several years, largely driven by greater enrollment and utilization during and following the pandemic.

Recent federal budget measures during the Trump administration brought major proposals to scale back federal Medicaid funding and change the program’s structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which became law in 2025, is estimated to reduce federal Medicaid spending by more than $1 trillion over 10 years, adding provisions like work requirements and higher cost-sharing that may lower coverage and funding for certain participants. These adjustments are projected to transfer additional costs to states and curtail the rise of federal support for Medicaid, even as the program continues to serve tens of 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.