Medicaid dental payments in Dardanelle reach $42,015 in 2024, up 11% from year before

Dardanelle Medicaid providers reported $42,015 in claims for services within the Dental Services category in 2024, based on figures from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This amount represented an 11% rise over 2023, when providers filed $37,857 in claims for Dental Services.

Medicaid is a publicly funded health insurance program administered by states with financial support from both state and federal governments. It covers people with low incomes, children, seniors, and individuals with disabilities, making it a key component of the U.S. health care system.

Shifts in local Medicaid billing reflect how taxpayer-funded health care dollars are spent within the community.

The “Dental Services” classification includes a set of Medicaid-billed services organized by the type of dental care delivered, following standardized HCPCS and CPT code groupings. Each billing code for this analysis was assigned to a single category by matching prefixes and numeric ranges, supporting clear year-over-year analysis and preventing duplicate counts.

Although total Medicaid expenditures grew across several service types, Dental Services ranked fourth in Dardanelle for overall Medicaid payments in 2024.

Statewide in Arkansas, Dental Services placed ninth among all Medicaid service categories by total payments in 2024.

Between five years ago and 2024, Medicaid payments in Dardanelle for Dental Services increased by $22,309, or 113.2%. Certain years such as 2020 and 2022 saw especially strong year-over-year growth in this category.

Although payments for Dental Services were distributed throughout Dardanelle, the majority were concentrated in a small number of ZIP codes. For 2024, ZIP code 72834 recorded $42,014 in Dental Services Medicaid payments, representing 100% of the city’s Medicaid spending in this category.

Medicaid Dental Services payments were also focused among a select group of billing codes.

Medicaid Dental Services payments in Dardanelle rose 11% from 2023 to 2024, while Medicaid payments across all claim categories in the city climbed 24.9% during the same period.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, overall federal and state Medicaid spending reached approximately $871.7 billion in the 2023 fiscal year. This figure made up about 18% of total national health expenditures and marked a sharp increase from close to $613.5 billion in 2019 before the COVID-19 pandemic.

This nearly 40% rise over several years was largely due to broader enrollment and increased use of services during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget laws passed under the Trump administration included substantial efforts to decrease federal Medicaid funding and alter the program’s structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is projected to reduce federal Medicaid spending by over $1 trillion in the next decade and implements changes such as work requirements and higher cost-sharing that could limit coverage and funding for certain recipients. These measures are expected to shift greater financial responsibility to states and curtail the growth of federal Medicaid funding, 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.