Paramount Medicaid dental payments climb 2.8% in 2024

In 2024, Medicaid providers in Paramount submitted $1,371,682 in claims for Dental Services, as reported in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Medicaid Provider Spending database. This reflects a 2.8% rise over the 2023 total of $1,333,830 billed for these services.

Medicaid, funded in partnership by state and federal governments, is a major public insurance program supporting low-income families and individuals, seniors, children, and people with disabilities. The program plays a substantial role in the U.S. health care landscape.

Since Medicaid funding is taxpayer-based, shifts in billing at the community level provide insight into public health funding allocation.

The Dental Services category encompasses a range of services grouped by care type and classified under standardized HCPCS and CPT codes. For this review, each billing code was aligned to a single service category using standard code prefixes and ranges, allowing for accurate comparative analysis without duplicate counting and maintaining consistent rankings through time.

Dental Services made up the second-largest share of Medicaid spending among service categories in Paramount for 2024, even as overall Medicaid expenditures in other categories also increased.

Statewide, Dental Services ranked 11th in total Medicaid payments across California in 2024.

From 2019 to 2024, Medicaid-funded Dental Services in Paramount rose by $598,725, representing a 77.5% increase. Increments over select years, particularly in 2021 and 2022, accounted for larger annual changes.

Dental Services Medicaid spending occurred in various parts of the city, but the majority originated from a small group of ZIP codes. In 2024, the highest volume of Medicaid payments in this category came from ZIP code 90723, which totaled $1,371,681. This single ZIP code represented all, or 100%, of Medicaid Dental Services payments in Paramount for the year.

Payments within the Dental Services segment were further concentrated around a handful of specific billing codes.

To note, Medicaid spending on Dental Services in Paramount rose 2.8% between 2024 and 2023, while across all Medicaid service areas, the city saw a 17.3% increase over the same timeframe.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reports that, combining both federal and state sources, Medicaid spent about $871.7 billion in fiscal year 2023, making up nearly 18% of the total U.S. health expenditure. This is a sharp rise from $613.5 billion spent in 2019 before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The roughly 40% climb in spending over a few years has been attributed primarily to growth in enrollment and increased usage during and following the pandemic.

New federal budget legislation signed during the Trump administration has included significant measures that may decrease federal resources for Medicaid and change program funding structures. Specifically, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” enacted in 2025, is anticipated to reduce federal Medicaid expenditures by more than $1 trillion over the next decade. The legislation adds work requirements and higher cost-sharing for some enrollees, potentially reducing benefits and shifting additional costs to individual states as federal support growth slows, even as Medicaid continues to serve tens of millions of people across the country.

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.