Which States Pay the Highest Medicaid Rates

Every state ranked by how its published Medicaid schedule compares with national Medicare, pooled across all service categories. The spread runs from Alaska at 166.9% of the Medicare amount down to Pennsylvania at 55.5%.

Every state, kept current

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RankStateMedian % of MedicareCodes comparedCategories
1Alaska166.9%7,8778
2New Mexico138.4%10,4469
3Montana134.6%11,10210
4Rhode Island114.9%2328
5North Dakota106.6%10,0028
6Arizona104.4%10,7589
7Nevada101.8%9,6169
8Nebraska100%9,5439
9Hawaii99.9%9,92210
10Delaware97%9,24410
11New York96.3%7,9398
12Indiana95.8%10,4599
13Arkansas95%9,77810
14Wyoming89%9,59510
15District of Columbia88.5%9,7989
16Oklahoma87.8%9,79510
17Virginia86.6%10,05210
18Georgia86.2%8,5207
19Louisiana85.7%9,36710
20Texas84.1%9,84410
21Colorado83.4%9,00010
22Maryland83.4%1,4436
23Vermont82.7%9,91010
24Mississippi82.6%10,25410
25Wisconsin82.5%9,87510
26Kansas82.2%9,34610
27Missouri81.5%8,2799
28Massachusetts80.3%9,9529
29Idaho80.1%10,1059
30Oregon80%10,0366
31New Jersey79.4%10,1209
32California78.6%9,42010
33North Carolina78.5%9,01011
34Kentucky78.1%10,7149
35Iowa78%9,96310
36Florida77.8%9,7958
37Minnesota76.5%10,30810
38Utah75.8%9,4169
39Ohio74.1%10,1468
40Illinois71.9%9,6169
41West Virginia71.7%10,33210
42South Carolina70.5%8,57410
43Alabama69.2%7,2827
44Connecticut68.2%10,17012
45Maine67.6%9,88710
46New Hampshire67.1%10,07810
47Michigan63.8%10,1439
48Washington61%9,72110
49Pennsylvania55.5%4,6279

No comparable basis: South Dakota, Tennessee. These jurisdictions publish schedules whose codes lack a national Medicare comparator, or publish no medical fee schedule at all (Tennessee's case is its own story).

Published Medicaid fee-for-service schedule amounts, not a coverage or eligibility guarantee. Managed-care plan rates can differ. Where no prior-authorization flag is shown, the state does not publish one. Hospital-bundle schedules (outpatient APC, inpatient) are excluded from every Medicare comparison; Rhode Island's comparable rows are its lab and radiology schedules, and Oregon's rates are derived from its published methodology.

Per-category rankings

Frequently asked questions

Which state pays the highest Medicaid rates?

Measured as the median percent of the national Medicare amount across every comparable code it publishes, Alaska pays the most: 166.9% of Medicare across 7,877 compared codes. The top of the table is dominated by large rural states, where the rate is the access policy.

Which state pays the lowest Medicaid rates?

Pennsylvania anchors the bottom at a median 55.5% of the Medicare amount. Individual categories and codes vary widely inside every state, so use the per-category pages for anything narrower than the composite.

How is this ranking calculated?

For every code a state publishes that has a national Medicare comparator (Physician Fee Schedule, clinical lab, ASC, or DMEPOS), we compute the state's rate as a percent of the Medicare amount, then take the state's median across all of them. Hospital-bundle schedules (outpatient APC, inpatient) are excluded from the comparison because bundle amounts are not comparable with professional rates. It is a GPCI-neutral national comparison of published fee-for-service schedules, not managed-care payment.