Dental Services Medicaid payments surge 63.3% in Fitchburg in 2024

In 2024, providers in Fitchburg submitted $145,231 in Medicaid claims under the Dental Services category, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This amount reflects a 63.3% jump compared with 2023, when claims in this category totaled $88,917.

Medicaid is a statewide public insurance program administered by states and funded with joint federal and state resources. The program covers low-income people, seniors, children, and individuals with disabilities, serving as one of the central components of the U.S. healthcare system.

Because public funds pay for Medicaid, adjustments in local billing show how health care costs are distributed in the community.

The Dental Services category encompasses Medicaid-billed care as defined by specific HCPCS and CPT code clusters. For this analysis, each billing code was sorted into a single service category using consistent code prefixes and number ranges, which supports evaluation while preventing duplicate counts and ensuring accurate year-by-year comparisons.

Medicaid payments went up for a number of different service categories; Dental Services ranked as the fourth largest Medicaid spending type in Fitchburg for 2024.

Across Wisconsin, Dental Services ranked 10th among all categories in statewide Medicaid payments in 2024.

Between 2019 and 2024, the amount billed for Dental Services in Fitchburg saw no percentage change with an increase of $145,231. Spending growth accelerated during select periods, including notable year-over-year gains in 2022 and 2022.

Although services in the Dental Services category were provided in multiple neighborhoods across Fitchburg, payments were mainly concentrated in particular ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 53713 alone accounted for $145,231. The largest ZIP code by payment accounted for 100% of Dental Services Medicaid spending that year.

Medicaid payments within the Dental Services category also concentrated in relatively few billing codes.

From 2023 to 2024, payments for Dental Services in Fitchburg climbed 63.3%, compared with just a 1% total change for all Medicaid claims across service types in the city over the same period.

Data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services shows that federal and state Medicaid expenditures totaled around $871.7 billion in fiscal 2023, or approximately 18% of national health spending, up from about $613.5 billion in 2019, before the onset of COVID-19.

This represents roughly 40% growth in the program in a few years, largely driven by rising enrollment and increased health usage during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget changes under the Trump administration brought major proposals to cut federal funding for Medicaid and overhaul its structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” passed in 2025, is slated to reduce more than $1 trillion in federal Medicaid payments over the next decade and would introduce changes like work requirements and higher cost-sharing that may affect the scope of coverage and funding for some participants. The legislation aims to shift fiscal responsibility more to the states and may limit future federal Medicaid growth even as the program continues to support 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.

Details for this report are from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. The source dataset is available here.