D2740 Dental Code: Porcelain or ceramic crown Cost in 2026

What D2740 means on your bill

D2740 is the billing code for a full-coverage crown made entirely of porcelain or ceramic, capping a tooth after deep decay, a large filling, or a fracture. It is the crown code seen most often on adult claims, since most patients choose a tooth-colored material over a metal-porcelain blend. The line rarely stands alone: a core build-up (D2950) is usually billed on the same visit to rebuild the tooth before the crown fits, and the code sometimes follows a root canal on the same tooth. Because the crown code reflects the material used, it shapes how a plan classes the claim, so a different crown code changes both the fee and the coverage tier. Background: dental crown cost.

D2740 cost: cash fair price vs what Medicaid paid (2026)

For D2740, the chart compares two measures of the same ceramic crown. The cash fair price runs $1,046–$2,331, typical $1,369, driven largely by lab fees for the ceramic and the build-up billed alongside it. Medicaid paid dentists a national average of $546 per claim line across 660,776 claim lines in 2023-2024, a gap of 2.5x versus the cash average. That paid figure is a weighted-average program payment to the dentist, drawn from HHS T-MSIS, not a patient bill. Only about 20% of active dentists billed Medicaid at all in 2023-2024, so the gap below reflects which dentists accept the program as much as what a ceramic crown costs.

What Medicaid paid dentists for D2740, by state (2023-2024)

The table below covers 40 states for D2740; the rest fail the data-quality checks or report too few claim lines. Payment for the same ceramic-crown code ranges from $101 in Vermont to $930 in Texas, a spread wide enough that the code alone does not predict the state figure. The cash column beside each state is that state's independent average outside insurance, shown for comparison, not derived from the Medicaid figure. A high Medicaid payment for D2740 in a given state does not mean that state's program covers crowns for adults; see Medicaid adult dental by state for coverage rules. These figures are specific to this crown code. The Official Medicaid fee column adds what 8 states print on their own dental fee schedules for a ceramic crown, and it rarely matches what was paid: Ohio lists $817 and New Jersey $307, while the Fee ÷ paid column shows how far each program's payments sit from its own schedule.

Medicaid paid: per claim line, weighted average 2023-2024, derived from HHS T-MSIS Medicaid provider spending (Real Dental Costs, DOI 10.7910/DVN/7F2BZI); states with a data-quality flag or too few lines are omitted. Official Medicaid fee: the fee-for-service rate for this code on the state's published Medicaid dental fee schedule (captured for Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Wyoming; effective dates, source URLs and file hashes in the API file); "—" where no schedule was captured or the code is not on it. Michigan publishes $818 on its schedule but has no publishable paid row here (its Medicaid claims cannot be geolocated). Wyoming publishes $731 on its schedule but has no publishable paid row here (data-quality flag or too few claim lines). Fee and paid differ by design: paid mixes managed-care encounters, reduced and bundled lines and 2023-2024 rates, while the schedule is the current fee-for-service rate. Schedule notes: Illinois: first two fee columns captured (fee_usd = first column); New Jersey: fee_usd = specialist adult column; fee_alt_usd = non-specialist adult column (child columns not captured); Ohio: first two fee columns captured (fee_usd = first column); Texas: no single effective date printed on the schedule; fee = most frequent non-zero rate across provider types; Wyoming: XLSX master schedule substituted for the ADA-indexed PDF (which carries no dental codes); effective date = latest active rate begin date. Cash: Real Dental Costs procedure API, porcelain or ceramic crown proxy = Dental crown (basis observed). Program payments, not patient bills; not a quote.

How insurance classes D2740

Plans typically class D2740 as major restorative, reimbursed at about 50% after the deductible rather than the near-full coverage given to cleanings. The build-up billed with it (D2950) is the line insurers most often bundle into the crown fee or deny outright, so a crown can be approved while its build-up is not. Major restorative claims draw against the plan's annual maximum, commonly $1,000-$2,000 for the year, usually the real limit on reimbursement. A pre-treatment estimate filed on the exact code, before the appointment, shows how a plan splits the crown and the build-up. If an office proposes a different crown code, ask what changed. Read more: dental insurance guide.

Chains, schools and where D2740 costs less

Aspen Dental publishes $1,269 on average for its dental crown (per tooth) ($902-$2,051), against the independent band of $1,046–$2,331 above; the build-up billed alongside a crown is rarely itemized in chain pricing the way it is on an independent claim. Dental school clinics, where supervised students perform the same procedures, typically run 30-60% below private fees; see dental school cost. For every other CDT code on this site, browse every procedure price. Cash averages for this crown code run from $1,046 in Alabama to $2,331 in California.

Related guides

Frequently asked questions