In 2024, Medicaid providers in Pomona billed $2,636,853 for Dental Services, based on data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This was a 15.5% jump compared to 2023, when the same services totaled $2,282,208 in claims.
Medicaid, a public health insurance program managed by states and jointly funded by federal and state governments, serves low-income residents, seniors, children, and people with disabilities. This program is one of the largest components of the U.S. health care system. Learn more about how Medicaid is funded here.
Since Medicaid payments are taxpayer-funded, shifts in local billing offer insights into how a community allocates public health care funding.
The Dental Services category consists of Medicaid-billed services grouped by care type, using standardized HCPCS and CPT code ranges. For this analysis, each billing code was assigned to one service category based on defined code prefixes and ranges, allowing related care to be tracked together and avoiding duplicate counts to maintain accurate rankings.
While Medicaid spending increased across several categories, Dental Services were the eighth largest by total Medicaid payments in Pomona in 2024.
Statewide, Dental Services was the 11th highest Medicaid payment category in California in 2024.
From 2019 through 2024, Pomona’s Medicaid payments for Dental Services grew by $1,500,440, representing a 132% increase. Some of the steepest year-over-year increases occurred in 2021 and 2022.
Payments for Dental Services were distributed citywide but were heavily concentrated in a few ZIP codes. In 2024, Medicaid payments in the category amounted to $1,697,028 for ZIP code 91766, $675,697 for 91767, and $264,126 for 91768. These 3 ZIP codes together represented 100% of all Medicaid payments for Dental Services in Pomona during the year.
Within the Dental Services group, most Medicaid payments were linked to a small set of individual billing codes.
To compare, Medicaid payments for Dental Services in Pomona increased by 15.5% between 2023 and 2024, versus an 11.5% change across all Medicaid claim categories in the city over the same period.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined state and federal Medicaid spending reached approximately $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, which is about 18% of total national health expenditures. This marked a sharp rise from roughly $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
This increase reflects growth of about 40% in just a few years, mainly attributed to higher enrollment and expanded service use during and after the pandemic.
Recent federal budget measures under the Trump administration have contained large-scale proposals to cut federal Medicaid funding and alter the program’s structure. For example, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is expected to lower federal Medicaid spending by more than $1 trillion over a decade and introduces requirements like employment mandates and higher cost-sharing. These changes may shift more costs to states and restrict the future growth of federal Medicaid funding, even as the program continues to cover tens of millions of Americans.
| Year | Total Medicaid Payments | % Change From Previous Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $1,136,412 | -27.2% |
| 2021 | $1,505,387 | 32.5% |
| 2022 | $1,983,511 | 31.8% |
| 2023 | $2,282,208 | 15.1% |
| 2024 | $2,636,852 | 15.5% |
| Rank | Category | Medicaid Payments | Share of City Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Evaluation and Management | $12,460,577 | 18.7% |
| 2 | Pathology and Laboratory Procedures | $10,365,320 | 15.6% |
| 3 | Medicine Services and Procedures | $9,938,673 | 14.9% |
| 4 | Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) | $9,027,735 | 13.6% |
| 5 | National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies | $5,994,196 | 9% |
| 6 | Radiology Procedures | $4,608,552 | 6.9% |
| 7 | Procedures / Professional Services | $3,221,810 | 4.8% |
| 8 | Dental Services | $2,636,852 | 4% |
| 9 | Durable Medical Equipment | $2,431,692 | 3.6% |
| 10 | Anesthesia | $2,263,431 | 3.4% |
| 11 | Surgery | $1,710,933 | 2.6% |
| 12 | Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) | $731,493 | 1.1% |
| 13 | Drugs Administered Other than Oral Method | $421,348 | 0.6% |
| 14 | Chemotherapy Drugs | $408,643 | 0.6% |
| 15 | Vision Services | $87,535 | 0.1% |
| 16 | Temporary Codes | $80,725 | 0.1% |
| 17 | Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment | $53,984 | 0.1% |
| 18 | Diagnostic Radiology Services | $41,905 | 0.1% |
| 19 | Administrative, Miscellaneous and Investigational | $36,685 | 0.1% |
| 20 | Pathology and Laboratory Services | $35,334 | 0.1% |
| 21 | Hearing Services | $30,147 | <0.1% |
| 22 | Medical And Surgical Supplies | $18,679 | <0.1% |
| 23 | Coronavirus Diagnostic Panel | $16,123 | <0.1% |
| HCPCS Code | Description | Medicaid Payments | Claims |
|---|---|---|---|
| D0120 | Periodic oral evaluation | $928,089 | 262 |
| D0150 | Comprehensve oral evaluation | $528,770 | 242 |
| D0230 | Intraoral periapical ea add | $367,924 | 354 |
| D0210 | Intraor comprehensive series | $165,023 | 149 |
| D0350 | Oral/facial photo images | $140,958 | 185 |
| D0274 | Bitewings four images | $122,754 | 188 |
| D0145 | Oral evaluation, pt < 3yrs | $73,869 | 45 |
| D0330 | Panoramic image | $71,655 | 93 |
| D0220 | Intraoral periapical first | $71,260 | 164 |
| D0272 | Dental bitewings two images | $68,184 | 166 |
| D0603 | Caries risk assess high risk | $62,650 | 99 |
| D0340 | 2d cephalometric image | $17,375 | 16 |
| D0140 | Limit oral eval problm focus | $11,295 | 16 |
| D0602 | Caries risk assess mod risk | $7,042 | 11 |
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.
