About PlainDentalCost

Our mission is to make dental procedure cost data transparent and freely accessible to consumers, journalists, and researchers across the United States. PlainDentalCost helps anyone weighing a dental treatment decision see, in dollar terms, what the procedure typically costs in their state — both under Medicaid (where their state covers it) and on the private market.

PlainDentalCost pulls together three public, citable data sources: state Medicaid agency dental fee schedules (one per state), the American Dental Association Health Policy Institute compendiums (national surveys of dental fees and Medicaid reimbursement), and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis Regional Price Parities (state-level cost-of-living indices). We do not generate prices — we organize prices that already exist in public datasets and make them comparable side by side.

Our Data

Cost figures come from the following published government and industry datasets:

• State Medicaid dental fee schedules — published by each state's Medicaid agency, current 2026 Q1.
• ADA Health Policy Institute, Survey of Dental Fees (2024) — population-weighted national average private-market fees by CDT code.
• ADA Health Policy Institute, Medicaid Reimbursement Compendium (2024) — national-average and state-level Medicaid FFS reimbursement rates.
• MACPAC, Medicaid Coverage of Dental Benefits for Adults compendium — state-by-state categorization of adult dental coverage scope.
• U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, Regional Price Parities, by State — state-level cost-of-living index used to adjust national private-market averages to state estimates.

Detailed methodology — including exactly how the per-state private estimates are derived — is on the methodology page.

Editorial Standards

PlainDentalCost is published by Kiznis Studio, a small independent publisher of US public-data portals. We follow these editorial standards on every page:

• Source citations on every cost figure. Each table includes the source dataset and vintage; the methodology page links to every primary URL.
• "Data not available" instead of guesses. When a state Medicaid program does not cover a procedure, the cell shows "Not covered" rather than a fabricated number. When private-market data is missing for a procedure, the cell is blank, not zero.
• Conservative private-market estimation. Per-state private estimates use a documented, reproducible method (national average × state RPP). We do not advertise a precision the source data does not support.
• No conflicts of interest. PlainDentalCost does not accept paid placement from dentists, dental insurance carriers, dental products, or financial-services companies. Rankings, where shown, are computed from the underlying data only.
• Plain English. Every page uses common-language terms first (e.g., "deep cleaning"), with the technical CDT code shown alongside as a reference.

Editorial team

Editorial direction and source vetting are handled by the Kiznis Studio editorial team (Wikidata Q139378880). Cost-data ETL and per-state schedule ingestion are reviewed by the PlainDentalCost editorial team. We do not have a clinical advisory board — our scope is cost intelligence, not clinical recommendation. For any clinical question (whether a procedure is right for you), see your dentist.

Known limitations

We aim to be transparent about what PlainDentalCost's cost data does and does not capture. Major limitations a thoughtful reader should understand:

• State-level RPP, not metro-level. Our private-market estimates use a state-wide cost-of-living adjustment. Within any state, urban downtowns price 15-25% above the state estimate and rural areas 10-15% below. Treat the state estimate as a midpoint, not a quote.
• Specialty premium not modeled. Specialists (oral surgeons, prosthodontists, periodontists, endodontists, orthodontists) typically charge 15-40% above the general-dentist rate for procedures within their specialty. Our national averages are general-dentist averages.
• Insurance carrier-negotiated rates not modeled. Privately-insured patients typically pay an in-network "allowed amount" 20-40% below the dentist's published fee. We show the published fee — what an out-of-network or uninsured patient sees.
• Not all 50 states publish complete fee schedules. A small number of states publish only PDF schedules with limited line-item detail; for these we use the state-level Medicaid multiplier, which is the best available estimate but cannot be cross-checked at every CDT code. State pages note where this applies.
• Coverage policy is a snapshot. State Medicaid programs add and remove adult dental benefits over time. We track the major changes (e.g., Maryland 2023 expansion, NH April 2025 restoration) but small policy adjustments may lag our update cycle by a few months.
• Clinical complexity averages out. The ADA HPI national figures are means across the full range of clinical presentations for each CDT code. An unusually complex case will price higher; a routine case lower. The estimate is a population midpoint, not a case-specific quote.

What we do not do

• We do not provide dental, medical, financial, legal, or insurance advice. PlainDentalCost is a data portal, not a clinical or financial-planning service.
• We do not refer to specific dentists, recommend specific providers, or rank named clinics. Our data is at the procedure-and-state level, not the individual-provider level.
• We do not republish the ADA's Current Dental Terminology (CDT) manual. CDT codes are referenced factually, with brief plain-language descriptions of what each procedure covers, which is fair use. For the official CDT code set and definitions, refer to the ADA's published manuals.

Contact

Email hello@plaindentalcost.com for data corrections, questions about methodology, or to suggest a procedure or state we should cover. Removal/opt-out requests are honored on a per-record basis — see the privacy page for the process and timeline.