Dental Services Medicaid spending in Sandy hits $81,720 for 2024, a 23.9% rise

Sandy’s Medicaid providers reported billing $81,720 for services in the Dental Services category in 2024, based on records from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This figure marks a 23.9% jump from 2023, when Dental Services billings totaled $65,932.

Medicaid is a statewide public health program that is jointly funded by state and federal governments. The coverage extends to low-income individuals and families, children, seniors, and people with disabilities, making Medicaid one of the largest components of the U.S. health care system.

Because taxpayer dollars fund Medicaid, fluctuations in local billing reflect changes in how public health resources are distributed within a community.

The “Dental Services” category includes a collection of Medicaid services defined by the type of dental care provided, categorized through standard HCPCS and CPT group codes. For this analysis, each billing code corresponded to only one service group, allowing for a clear view of Dental Services spending and trend comparisons across years without double counting.

Dental Services was the second highest Medicaid payment category in Sandy for 2024, even as overall Medicaid expenditures grew in several categories.

Across Oregon, Dental Services ranked 14th by total Medicaid payments in 2024.

From 2019 to 2024, Sandy’s Medicaid payments for Dental Services rose by $79,505, equating to a 3589.6% increase. Some individual years, including 2021 and 2023, saw particularly marked annual increases.

Although Dental Services payments were made citywide, most funds were concentrated in a select group of ZIP codes. The highest payment in 2024 went to ZIP code 97055, accounting for $81,720. This single ZIP code represented 100% of all Medicaid Dental Services payments in Sandy that year.

Dental Services Medicaid payments in Sandy were also heavily concentrated within a small subset of billing codes within the category.

Comparatively, Dental Services Medicaid payments in Sandy rose by 23.9% from 2023 to 2024, whereas overall Medicaid claim categories in the city saw a 6.4% increase in the same period.

According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, combined state and federal Medicaid spending reached about $871.7 billion in the 2023 fiscal year. That made up approximately 18% of national health expenditures, a steep rise from $613.5 billion in 2019, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

That climb amounts to roughly 40% growth in a few years, spurred on by increased enrollment and greater use of services during and after the pandemic.

Recent federal budget measures under the Trump administration included initiatives to reduce federal Medicaid funding and change the program’s structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed in 2025, aims to cut over $1 trillion in federal Medicaid spending in the next decade. Provisions, such as new work requirements and more cost-sharing, could impact both coverage and funding for some recipients. These changes are expected to shift more program costs to states and may limit federal aid growth, even though Medicaid still supports many Americans.

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.