Medicaid spending for DME MACs services reaches $141,824 statewide in Rhode Island in 2024

Statewide Medicaid payments in Rhode Island hit $141,824 in 2024 for coverage categorized under Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs), based on data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This is a 7.7% increase over 2023, when claims submitted reached $131,724.

Medicaid serves as a public health insurance initiative run by states and funded by both federal and state governments. It provides coverage for people with low incomes, older adults, children, and individuals with disabilities, making it one of the largest components of the U.S. health care system.

Because Medicaid spending is sourced from taxpayers, fluctuations in local billing demonstrate how funds for public health care are distributed throughout a community.

The “Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs)” classification represents a set of services billed through Medicaid, defined according to the type of care using consistent HCPCS and CPT code groupings. All billing codes were mapped to a unique service category based on standardized code prefixes and numerical ranges for this analysis, grouping similar services for comparison and maintaining accuracy in rankings and totals over time.

In certain cases, categories contain several types of relevant services. In such instances, the category includes similar medical service types frequently billed together, such as diagnostic tests, provider visits, and related treatment procedures.

Spending for Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) services occurred statewide but was most concentrated in a handful of ZIP codes during 2024. The three leading ZIP codes for Medicaid payments within this category were ZIP Code 02886, totaling $49,985 (35.2% of all payments); ZIP Code 02914, receiving $35,038 (24.7%); and ZIP Code 02904, registering $24,572 (17.3%).

Collectively, these three ZIP codes were responsible for 77.3% of Rhode Island Medicaid payments tied to the Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) grouping during the year.

Comparing all Medicaid payments in Rhode Island, spending in all claim categories increased by 0.3% from 2023 to 2024.

Even though Medicaid spending rose in a variety of service types, the Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) category ranked among the top 20 Medicaid payment categories in the state in 2024.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, joint federal and state spending on Medicaid reached about $871.7 billion in the 2023 fiscal year. This represented around 18% of total national health expenditures and was up substantially from roughly $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The increase reflects nearly 40% growth over a few years, fueled mainly by enrollment expansion and higher service utilization through and following the pandemic.

Recently enacted federal budget laws under the Trump administration have incorporated significant plans to trim Medicaid funding and change its fiscal structure. As an illustration, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is forecast to reduce federal Medicaid spending by over $1 trillion in the coming decade and brings about provisions including work mandates and greater cost sharing. These modifications could restrict coverage for some individuals and transfer more responsibility for funding to individual states, even as Medicaid continues to cover millions nationwide.

Details in this report rely on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. Source data is available here.