Dental Services Medicaid billing in Killen climbed 16.2% to $97,043 in 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Killen billed $97,043 for services listed under the Dental Services category, data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database show. That figure is up by 16.2% compared with 2023, when providers filed $83,507 in claims under the same category.

Medicaid, funded jointly by states and the federal government, is a government-run health insurance program. It primarily serves low-income individuals, families, seniors, children and people with disabilities, making it a cornerstone of the nation’s health care system.

Fluctuations in local Medicaid billing numbers reflect how taxpayer-funded health care resources are distributed in each community.

The “Dental Services” label refers to a collection of Medicaid-billed services defined by the type of care, based on standardized HCPCS and CPT code groups. For this analysis, billing codes were mapped to service categories using clear code prefixes and numeric ranges. This standardized grouping enabled the tracking of related services while avoiding duplicated counts and supporting consistent year-over-year rankings.

Dentistry led all Medicaid categories by total payments in Killen in 2024, even as several services posted increases.

Statewide, Dental Services ranked ninth for total Medicaid payments made throughout Alabama in 2024.

Looking at the five years through 2024, Medicaid billing for Dental Services in Killen increased by $95,096, or 4,884.2%. Certain years, including 2021 and 2022, saw particularly rapid gains.

Medicaid spending in the Dental Services category was distributed across Killen, but most payments came from a select group of ZIP codes. In 2024, ZIP code 35645 saw a total of $97,043 in such claims. This ZIP code accounted for 100% of the city’s Dental Services Medicaid payments that year.

Within the Dental Services category, the majority of Medicaid payments were concentrated among a small subset of billing codes.

For comparison, Killen’s Medicaid payments for Dental Services increased by 16.2% from 2023 to 2024. That growth rate was below the 24.6% change for all Medicaid claim categories in the city over the same span.

Data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services shows national Medicaid spending by both federal and state governments totaled roughly $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023. This comprised about 18% of total U.S. health spending, up sharply from $613.5 billion in 2019 ahead of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The nearly 40% growth over just a few years was largely fueled by increased enrollment and greater utilization during and after the pandemic era.

Major recent federal budget laws under the Trump administration have introduced notable efforts to cut federal Medicaid spending and change its structure. The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” signed in 2025, is set to reduce federal Medicaid outlays by more than $1 trillion over 10 years, while rolling out new policies like work requirements and higher cost-sharing, potentially reducing benefits and funding for particular groups. As federal supports slow, states are expected to bear more Medicaid costs even as program enrollment remains large.

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.