Santa Fe Medicaid providers billed $1,735,252 for services within the Dental Services category in 2024, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This represented a 0.5% increase from 2023, when providers billed $1,725,868 for the same services.
Medicaid is a public insurance program operated by states and funded with joint federal and state support. It provides coverage for low-income individuals and families, seniors, children, and people with disabilities, making it one of the central components of the U.S. health care system.
Because Medicaid is funded by taxpayers, local shifts in billing levels help illustrate how public health care funding is distributed within a community.
The “Dental Services” category comprises a range of Medicaid-billable services defined by the nature of care, classified through standardized HCPCS and CPT codes. For this report, each billing code was matched to a designated service group using standardized prefixes and code ranges, ensuring similar services could be studied together, while avoiding duplicate counting and keeping rankings consistent over time.
While Medicaid spending has risen in several service categories, Dental Services ranked 11th in total Medicaid payments for Santa Fe in 2024.
Statewide in New Mexico, Dental Services was the 10th largest category by Medicaid payments in 2024.
Between 2019 and 2024, Santa Fe’s Medicaid payments for Dental Services climbed by $481,341, or 38.4%. The rate of growth accelerated during some intervals, with substantial annual increases in 2021 and 2022.
Although care in the Dental Services category occurs throughout the city, payments were largely concentrated in a few ZIP codes. In 2024, the leading ZIP codes for Medicaid payments in this category were 87505 at $1,290,647, 87508 with $197,943, and 87507 reporting $173,797. The top 3 ZIP codes together made up 95.8% of Medicaid payments for Dental Services in Santa Fe during the year.
Payments within Dental Services were also focused among a small selection of billing codes.
Comparing trends, Medicaid payments related to Dental Services in Santa Fe increased 0.5% between 2024 and 2023, while all Medicaid claim categories in Santa Fe increased by 16.6% during the same period.
According to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, total federal and state Medicaid spending reached about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, making up nearly 18% of all national health expenditures and rising significantly from $613.5 billion in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic.
This growth represents an increase of roughly 40% in just a few years, largely due to greater enrollment numbers and higher utilization during and after the pandemic.
Recent federal budget measures enacted during the Trump administration have included major proposals to reduce federal Medicaid funding and modify the program. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed into law in 2025, is expected to cut more than $1 trillion from federal Medicaid funds over the coming decade and introduces requirements such as work rules and increased cost-sharing that could limit both funding and coverage for certain beneficiaries. These changes are expected to transfer more costs onto states and restrict federal Medicaid growth even as the program serves millions of Americans.
| Year | Total Medicaid Payments | % Change From Previous Year |
|---|---|---|
| 2020 | $1,253,910 | -17.5% |
| 2021 | $1,618,634 | 29.1% |
| 2022 | $1,736,363 | 7.3% |
| 2023 | $1,725,867 | -0.6% |
| 2024 | $1,735,252 | 0.5% |
| Rank | Category | Medicaid Payments | Share of City Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Evaluation and Management | $16,501,087 | 23.8% |
| 2 | Medicine Services and Procedures | $14,033,717 | 20.2% |
| 3 | Alcohol and Drug Abuse Treatment | $10,928,385 | 15.8% |
| 4 | National Codes Established for State Medicaid Agencies | $8,501,641 | 12.3% |
| 5 | Pathology and Laboratory Procedures | $3,964,299 | 5.7% |
| 6 | Procedures / Professional Services | $2,454,088 | 3.5% |
| 7 | Temporary National Codes (Non-Medicare) | $2,226,222 | 3.2% |
| 8 | Ambulance and Other Transport Services and Supplies | $2,215,276 | 3.2% |
| 9 | Radiology Procedures | $2,133,946 | 3.1% |
| 10 | Durable Medical Equipment | $1,800,686 | 2.6% |
| 11 | Dental Services | $1,735,252 | 2.5% |
| 12 | Surgery | $807,713 | 1.2% |
| 13 | Vision Services | $625,805 | 0.9% |
| 14 | Temporary Codes | $551,704 | 0.8% |
| 15 | Medical And Surgical Supplies | $315,361 | 0.5% |
| 16 | Drugs Administered Other than Oral Method | $259,278 | 0.4% |
| 17 | Enteral and Parenteral Therapy | $128,520 | 0.2% |
| 18 | Outpatient PPS | $118,247 | 0.2% |
| 19 | Orthotic Procedures and services | $32,882 | <0.1% |
| 20 | Durable medical equipment (DME) Medicare administrative contractors (MACs) | $31,867 | <0.1% |
| 21 | Administrative, Miscellaneous and Investigational | $10,228 | <0.1% |
| 22 | Other Services | $0 | <0.1% |
| HCPCS Code | Description | Medicaid Payments | Claims |
|---|---|---|---|
| D0120 | Periodic oral evaluation | $451,612 | 110 |
| D0999 | Unspecified diagnostic proce | $277,772 | 37 |
| D0274 | Bitewings four images | $243,619 | 142 |
| D0150 | Comprehensve oral evaluation | $177,982 | 137 |
| D0230 | Intraoral periapical ea add | $151,710 | 101 |
| D0272 | Dental bitewings two images | $124,136 | 102 |
| D0220 | Intraoral periapical first | $109,343 | 144 |
| D0210 | Intraor comprehensive series | $64,102 | 34 |
| D0140 | Limit oral eval problm focus | $58,751 | 98 |
| D0330 | Panoramic image | $56,047 | 34 |
| D0240 | Intraoral occlusal film | $18,741 | 40 |
| D0270 | Dental bitewing single image | $1,431 | 6 |
| D0603 | Caries risk assess high risk | $0 | 10 |
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.
