Alaska Medicaid outlays for DME MACs services climb to $101,192 in 2024

Alaska’s Medicaid program disbursed $101,192 in 2024 for services listed under the Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) category, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This total reflected a 14.8% rise from the prior year, when providers submitted claims totaling $88,110.

Comparisons for previous years in this article are based on the latest available annual data.

Medicaid is a state-administered health insurance program that is jointly financed by both federal and state governments. It covers populations such as low-income individuals and families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities, forming a core part of the U.S. health care landscape. For more details, see this explainer.

Shifts in local Medicaid reimbursement levels illustrate how taxpayer-supported health care resources are distributed throughout Alaska communities.

The “Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs)” classification includes Medicaid-billed services grouped by service type, using defined HCPCS and CPT code groupings. For this study, each code was placed in a specific service category using standard code prefixes and ranges, enabling analysis of related services together without double counting and maintaining proper category rankings over time.

Categories may contain several underlying types of service. When relevant, these categories reflect clusters of care often billed to Medicaid in tandem, like office visits, diagnostic tests or therapeutic interventions.

Although the Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) category had payments allocated statewide, most funding concentrated in a handful of ZIP codes. In 2024, the ZIP codes with the top Medicaid spending for these services were 99503 with $60,780 (60.1% of the total), 99502 with $25,939 (25.6%), and 99654 with $9,728 (9.6%).

Combined, these three ZIP codes were responsible for 95.3% of all Medicaid payments connected to the Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) category in Alaska for the year.

Statewide and across all claim types, Alaska Medicaid payments climbed 4.5% between 2023 and 2024.

While spending rose for various service categories, the Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) group was among the top 23 statewide service categories in terms of total Medicaid payments for 2024.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined state and federal Medicaid expenditures totaled approximately $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, representing about 18% of national health care costs. This is a sharp increase from around $613.5 billion spent in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This rise—roughly 40% over several years—resulted mainly from surges in Medicaid enrollment and usage after and during the pandemic.

Recent federal legislation during the Trump administration proposed major changes to Medicaid funding, aiming to reduce federal contributions and modify the program structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is expected to cut over $1 trillion from federal Medicaid funding in the next decade, introducing work requirements and higher cost-sharing that could affect coverage and financial support for some recipients. These policy changes are likely to transfer more costs to state governments and place constraints on the growth of federal Medicaid assistance as the program continues to serve millions nationwide.