Brookland Medicaid dental outlays climb to $13,891 in 2024

Brookland Medicaid providers billed $13,891 in 2024 for services within the Dental Services category, based on U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database information. This represented a 63.4% rise from 2023, when $8,499 was claimed for comparable services.

Medicaid, a public health insurance initiative operated by state governments and funded in partnership between federal and state sources, covers low-income individuals, families, seniors, children and people with disabilities. It stands among the largest segments of the U.S. health care system.

Since Medicaid draws on taxpayer funding, changing local billing amounts offer insight into how public health care funding is distributed in a community.

The “Dental Services” designation refers to a set of Medicaid-billed procedures grouped by care type, as well as standardized HCPCS and CPT code classifications. For purposes of this analysis, each service code was organized under a single category using consistent prefixes and numbering to ensure related care is grouped without duplication, maintaining accurate rankings through consecutive years.

While Medicaid reimbursements increased across several categories, Dental Services placed second for total payments in Brookland during 2024.

Statewide in Arkansas, Dental Services was ninth by total amount paid through Medicaid in 2024.

Over the prior five years up to 2024, Brookland’s Medicaid outlays for Dental Services grew by $13,891, or 0%. Annual growth rates sped up in certain years, with marked gains seen in 2022 and 2022.

Spending on Dental Services in Brookland was distributed throughout the city but concentrated in a few ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 72417 accounted for $13,891. The top 1 ZIP codes were responsible for 100% of Brookland’s Medicaid dental payments that year.

Within this Medicaid service group, most dental spending was focused on a select group of billing codes.

To compare, Dental Services Medicaid payments in Brookland rose 63.4% from 2023 to 2024, versus a 0.9% upswing for all Medicaid claim categories across the city during this timeframe.

As reported by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, total state and federal Medicaid costs hit roughly $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, making up around 18% of the nation’s health costs, up significantly from $613.5 billion in 2019, ahead of the COVID-19 public health emergency.

This increase amounts to nearly 40% growth within just a few years, with expanded enrollment and rising service volume throughout the pandemic cited as major drivers.

New federal legislative moves during the Trump administration proposed major changes to Medicaid support. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is projected to cut more than $1 trillion in federal Medicaid funding over a decade, adding requirements such as mandatory work and more cost-sharing—measures that could cut coverage and funding for some recipients. Experts expect these rules will increase costs for states and slow the pace of federal Medicaid expansion, although the program retains coverage for tens of millions nationwide.

Note: HCPCS codes are included for reference within each category. Service group totals and rankings in this article are determined by standardized group assignments instead of individual service codes.

Article source data is from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. Access the source here.