In 2024, Medicaid providers in Hereford billed $349,067 for services categorized under Dental Services, as shown by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This amount rose 6.3% from the $328,342 reported in 2023 for comparable services.
Medicaid is a state-administered public health insurance program supported by both federal and state funds. It covers children, seniors, people with disabilities, and low-income individuals, and stands as one of the nation’s primary health care programs.
Tax dollars fund Medicaid payments, so fluctuations in local billing indicate how health funds are invested within each community.
The “Dental Services” label captures a range of Medicaid-billed care types, determined by a standardized grouping of HCPCS and CPT codes. For this analysis, each billing code was aligned with a specific service group by code prefix and numerical range to ensure accuracy and prevent overlap or duplicate rankings.
Dentistry was the third-largest Medicaid payment category in Hereford for 2024, even as overall Medicaid spending grew across several service classifications.
Statewide in Texas, Dental Services occupied the seventh spot for total Medicaid payments in 2024.
From 2019 to 2024, Medicaid-linked payments for Dental Services in Hereford climbed by $294,807, representing a 543.3% jump. There were accelerated increases in certain years, notably in 2021 and 2023.
Dental Services spending, while present citywide, was mainly concentrated in a small number of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 79045 accounted for $349,067, meaning the top ZIP code comprised 100% of Medicaid Dental Services spending in Hereford that year.
Within the Dental Services group, most Medicaid dollars were distributed among a select set of billing codes.
For additional context, Medicaid payments in Hereford linked to Dental Services grew 6.3% from 2023 to 2024, versus a 36.7% gain across all provider categories in the city over that timeframe.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, federal and state Medicaid spending totaled about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, about 18% of all national health expenditures. This represents a significant rise from roughly $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
This increase marks growth of about 40% during a handful of years, primarily due to enrollment expansion and greater utilization in and after the pandemic period.
Recent federal budget laws under the Trump administration included substantive plans to lower federal Medicaid funding and restructure the program. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” passed in 2025, is expected to trim over $1 trillion in federal Medicaid expenditures in the coming decade. It creates new work requirements and increases cost-sharing, which could affect coverage and the amount of funding available for some enrollees. These policy shifts may ask more of state budgets and slow the increase of federal Medicaid resources, though Medicaid remains a safety net for many Americans.
| Year | Total Medicaid Payments | % Change From Previous Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $54,260 | – |
| 2021 | $293,739 | 441.4% |
| 2022 | $294,804 | 0.4% |
| 2023 | $328,341 | 11.4% |
| 2024 | $349,067 | 6.3% |
| Rank | Category | Medicaid Payments | Share of City Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies | $1,638,296 | 53.7% |
| 2 | Evaluation and Management | $910,901 | 29.9% |
| 3 | Dental Services | $349,067 | 11.4% |
| 4 | Pathology and Laboratory Procedures | $137,152 | 4.5% |
| 5 | Surgery | $8,537 | 0.3% |
| 6 | Procedures / Professional Services | $5,263 | 0.2% |
| 7 | Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies | $1,280 | <0.1% |
| 8 | Medicine Services and Procedures | $487 | <0.1% |
| HCPCS Code | Description | Medicaid Payments | Claims |
|---|---|---|---|
| D0999 | Unspecified diagnostic proce | $161,958 | 13 |
| D0145 | Oral evaluation, pt < 3yrs | $62,766 | 13 |
| D0230 | Intraoral periapical ea add | $50,184 | 23 |
| D0120 | Periodic oral evaluation | $32,774 | 25 |
| D0274 | Bitewings four images | $20,407 | 19 |
| D0220 | Intraoral periapical first | $16,541 | 24 |
| D0150 | Comprehensve oral evaluation | $4,434 | 13 |
| D0272 | Dental bitewings two images | $0 | 1 |
| D0330 | Panoramic image | $0 | 3 |
| D0601 | Caries risk assess low risk | $0 | 19 |
| D0602 | Caries risk assess mod risk | $0 | 14 |
| D0603 | Caries risk assess high risk | $0 | 23 |
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.
