At least $20,616 in Medicaid payments linked to COVID-19 claims in Burlingame for 2024

In 2024, Medicaid payments attributed to HCPCS codes specifically tied to COVID-19 reached at least $20,616 in Burlingame, based on information from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database.

Medicaid, run by states with support from both federal and state governments, is a public insurance program. The program serves low-income individuals, families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities and is one of the nation’s largest health care contributors. More details are available at this link.

Since Medicaid is paid for by taxpayers, shifts in local billing help reflect how health care resources are distributed locally.

This review used HCPCS codes designated as “COVID-19” or “coronavirus”-related in descriptive fields or reference lists to define virus-related services. Therefore, amounts reported only account for services explicitly marked as COVID-19 in billing records and exclude pandemic-related care potentially billed under other, broader medical classifications.

To provide context, San Jose reported the highest Medicaid payments linked to COVID-19 care in California for 2024, totaling $5,601,479 in such claims.

Sutter Bay Hospitals was identified as the sole provider in the city submitting Medicaid claims for COVID-19–related care in 2024, according to available data.

Medicaid payments for all other billing categories in Burlingame increased by $16,041,830 between 2020 and 2024, reflecting a 172.3% rise.

The average annual Medicaid payments in Burlingame in the two years before the pandemic measured $6,894,187.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined federal and state Medicaid expenditures were about $871.7 billion in the 2023 fiscal year, representing approximately 18% of national health spending, and marking a significant jump from roughly $613.5 billion in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This growth of about 40% over the span of several years was primarily fueled by increased enrollment and usage during the pandemic years and after.

Recent federal budget actions under the Trump administration have brought forward major changes impacting Medicaid funding and structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is forecasted to reduce federal Medicaid expenditures by more than $1 trillion through the next 10 years and incorporates measures like work requirements and enhanced cost-sharing, potentially decreasing access and coverage for some recipients. These new policies could place additional financial responsibility on individual states as federal growth slows, but the program will remain critical to tens of millions of Americans.

Note: Includes HCPCS codes explicitly labeled for COVID-19 services; totals do not represent all pandemic-related health care spending.

Details for this report were provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. Full source information is available here.