D2950 Dental Code: Core build-up under a crown Cost in 2026

What D2950 means on your bill

D2950 is the code for a core build-up: filling material packed into a tooth broken down too far for a crown to grip on its own. It is billed on the same visit as the crown, D2740 or a related code, never alone, and is one of two lines an insurer reviews separately. Whether a build-up is billed depends on how much of the tooth survives after decay or an old filling is removed; a tooth with only a thin wall left needs one, an otherwise intact tooth usually does not. Because it rides on the crown's claim, the build-up is also the line most often bundled into the crown fee or denied. Related guide: dental crown cost.

D2950 cost: cash fair price vs what Medicaid paid (2026)

D2950 rarely stands on its own in a claim, and the chart shows why insurers treat it as an afterthought to the crown: the cash fair price is $150–$450, typical $250, a fraction of the crown's own cost. Medicaid paid dentists a national average of $116 per claim line across 428,197 claim lines in 2023-2024, a gap of 2.1x versus the cash figure. That paid amount is the program's weighted-average payment to the dentist, drawn from HHS T-MSIS, not a bill sent to the patient. Only about 20% of active dentists billed Medicaid at all in 2023-2024, and build-up billing also depends on whether a state pays for it separately.

What Medicaid paid dentists for D2950, by state (2023-2024)

41 states publish a build-up figure below; the rest fail the data-quality gate or report too few claim lines to average. Payment for D2950 runs from $28 in Hawaii to $278 in Delaware, a range that partly reflects how differently states treat this line next to the crown it supports. The cash column beside each state is that state's independent average outside insurance, shown for comparison, not derived from the Medicaid figure. A state paying reasonably for D2950 says nothing about whether its Medicaid program covers crowns for adults at all; see Medicaid adult dental by state for coverage rules. These numbers are specific to the build-up code. Build-ups are the line most fee schedules price on their own, apart from the crown: Ohio prints $146 for D2950 against New Jersey's $54, and Pennsylvania and New York do not list the code at all, hence the dash in their Official Medicaid fee cells.

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, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio, 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 $192 on its schedule but has no publishable paid row here (its Medicaid claims cannot be geolocated). Wyoming publishes $157 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: compiled core build-up under a crown band (published fee surveys 2024-2026, no procedure API series), scaled by each state's Dental crown price index from the procedure API (basis estimated). Program payments, not patient bills; not a quote.

How insurance classes D2950

Plans typically class D2950 as major restorative alongside the crown it supports, reimbursed around 50% after the deductible when paid at all, but it is the line insurers most often fold into the crown's fee or reject outright. The annual maximum, commonly $1,000-$2,000 for the year, applies to the crown and build-up together, so a denied build-up does not free up room under that ceiling. A pre-treatment estimate listing the build-up as its own line, filed before the appointment, shows whether a plan pays it separately. If a build-up appears on a bill where none was estimated, ask what the dentist found. More: dental insurance guide.

Chains, schools and where D2950 costs less

No national chain publishes a standalone price for a core build-up, since it is bundled into the crown quote rather than listed on its own. Dental school clinics, where supervised students perform the same restorative work, typically charge 30-60% below private-practice fees for build-ups and the crowns that follow them; see dental school cost. The full list of procedure prices tracked on this site, by CDT code, is at every procedure price. Cash averages for this code range from $191 in Alabama to $426 in California.

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