Dental Services Medicaid payments rise to $37,960 in Belle for 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Belle submitted $37,960 in claims for Dental Services, data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database shows. This amount represents a 110.6% jump compared with 2023, when the total for equivalent services was $18,027.

Medicaid, which is funded jointly by the state and federal governments and administered at the state level, provides coverage for low-income individuals, families, seniors, children, and individuals with disabilities, making it a major pillar of the U.S. health care sector.

Because Medicaid financing comes from taxpayers, variations in local billing figures offer insight into how public health dollars are distributed in a specific area.

The “Dental Services” category encompasses Medicaid claims for care classified by standardized HCPCS and CPT code groupings. For this review, each service code was matched to a specific service group using defined code prefixes and numbers, ensuring that services were grouped precisely, double counting was avoided, and service categories could be ranked over time with accuracy.

Although Medicaid costs climbed across various service categories, Dental Services ranked as the second-highest category in Belle by payment amount for 2024.

Statewide in West Virginia, Dental Services placed 13th among all Medicaid payment categories for 2024.

Between 2019 and 2024, Medicaid dollars paid for Dental Services in Belle rose by $22,618, a 147.4% increase. Spending trends included notable year-over-year jumps, especially seen in 2021 and 2022.

Spending within the Dental Services category, while distributed across Belle, was primarily located in a small number of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 25015 alone recorded $37,960 in Dental Services claims, representing 100% of this Medicaid category’s spending in Belle that year.

Medicaid costs within the Dental Services group were also concentrated among relatively few billing codes.

When compared to all Medicaid categories in Belle, Dental Services saw a 110.6% hike between 2023 and 2024, while the overall growth rate for all Medicaid claims in the city was just 1.9% across that span.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, federal and state spending together for Medicaid hit about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, which was approximately 18% of the nation’s total health expenditures—a significant rise from $613.5 billion in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

This shift marks about a 40% rise in just several years, fueled largely by increases in Medicaid enrollment and use during and after the pandemic era.

Recent federal budget policies under the Trump administration have included notable proposals to reduce federal Medicaid support and to alter the program’s financial structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is set to cut more than $1 trillion in federal Medicaid funding over the coming decade and introduces changes such as work requirements and higher cost-sharing that could mean reduced coverage or funding for some groups. These modifications are expected to place more financial liability on states and curb the expansion of federal Medicaid investment, even as the program continues serving 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.