Medicaid payments for Hearing Services in Aurora rose 82% to nearly $2.9 million in 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Aurora billed a total of $2,889,262 for services included in the Hearing Services category, based on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. That reflects an 81.7% jump over 2023, when $1,590,103 was billed for similar services.

Medicaid is a health coverage program operated by states and funded jointly by federal and state governments. The program covers people with low incomes, children, seniors and those with disabilities, making it a major component of the U.S. health system.

Since Medicaid payments are sourced from tax dollars, shifts in local billing levels reveal how public health care resources are distributed in the community.

The “Hearing Services” category includes a group of Medicaid services bundled by care type, using standard HCPCS and CPT codes. This analysis assigned each billing code to only one service category through defined code prefixes and number ranges, which enabled related services to be grouped for an accurate, non-duplicative review over time.

Across multiple service categories where Medicaid spending rose, Hearing Services placed fourth in Aurora by overall Medicaid payments during 2024.

Statewide across Illinois, the Hearing Services category was ranked 14th for total Medicaid spending in 2024.

From five years before 2024, the amount Aurora providers billed to Medicaid for Hearing Services grew by $1,536,364—equal to a 113.6% increase. Certain years saw faster rates of growth, including distinct year-over-year gains in 2023 and 2021.

Spending related to Hearing Services was allocated throughout Aurora, but most payments were centralized within a small group of ZIP codes. For 2024, the ZIP code 60504 alone saw $2,889,261 billed for Hearing Services. Altogether, Aurora’s top ZIP code represented 100% of the Medicaid Hearing Services payments in the city for the year.

Within the category, payments were also heavily concentrated by billing code.

When comparing growth, the Hearing Services category saw Medicaid payments in Aurora rise 81.7% from 2023 to 2024, whereas all Medicaid claim categories in Aurora grew by 5.3% in the same timeframe.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined Medicaid expenditures from federal and state funding reached about $871.7 billion for the 2023 fiscal year, which made up nearly 18% of national health spending—rising from $613.5 billion in 2019, before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This increase marks around 40% growth over several years, mainly due to expanded participant enrollment and higher service use during and directly after the pandemic.

Federal lawmakers under the Trump administration have passed budget measures aiming to decrease federal Medicaid funding and make structural changes to the program. One such example, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is estimated to cut federal Medicaid spending by more than $1 trillion in the next 10 years. These policy changes add new requirements, such as work mandates and higher cost-sharing, which could reduce Medicaid eligibility and federal funds for some. As a result, state governments may be responsible for a greater share of costs even as Medicaid continues to provide for 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.