Dental work without insurance: the full fee, and how to pay less of it
Pick the procedure and your state: the estimator is set to no insurance and gives the typical full fee an office bills.
You pay for crown in New York
$2,195
Typical full fee for crown (per tooth) in New York; an in-network price is about $1,081.
| Estimated dentist charge (full fee) | $2,195 |
| Estimated in-network price | $1,081 |
| New York Medicaid fee, same codes (2024) | $505 |
Estimate: New York Medicaid fee ÷ 26.1 % (Medicaid pay as a share of dentists' charges, ADA HPI 2024). Brought to September 2026 with the dental services price index (BLS). Not a quote.
| CDT code | Service | Count | Medicaid fee, 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
| D2740 | Crown, porcelain or ceramic | 1 | $505 |
Compiled by Radif Partners · How prices are estimated · state Medicaid fee schedules, ADA ratios of 2024, BLS dental price index · not a quote
A patient with no dental plan is billed the office's full fee, which is higher than the price a plan negotiates for its members. On the estimates of this site, built from state Medicaid fee schedules and the ADA Health Policy Institute's 2024 ratios, a checkup with cleaning and X-rays has a median full fee of $328 and a porcelain crown $1,713, in September 2026 dollars. For the same procedures, the network price that private plans allow is lower by about 43 % on average across the procedures listed below, a gap that uninsured patients pay in full. The bill can still shrink: asking the office for its cash price or a payment plan, choosing a dental school or a community health center, checking whether Medicaid covers adults in your state, and comparing a plan's yearly cost with the work you expect. None of these changes what treatment you need, which is a matter for a dentist.
What uninsured patients are billed
Every dental office keeps a list of its own fees, often called its usual fees. Insured patients rarely pay them: the plan has agreed a lower amount with dentists in its network, and the patient owes a share of that lower amount. A patient without a plan has no such agreement behind them, so the office's list applies unless it offers something else. The full fee is what the estimator shows when the coverage is set to none.
| Procedure | Full fee, median | Network price, median | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| Checkup and cleaning | $328 | $185 | 44 % |
| Filling | $277 | $158 | 43 % |
| Crown | $1,713 | $981 | 43 % |
| Root canal, molar | $1,646 | $948 | 42 % |
| Simple extraction | $230 | $132 | 42 % |
| Full dentures, both arches | $4,166 | $2,275 | 45 % |
The gap is not the same everywhere. It comes from two ratios that the ADA measured in each state, Medicaid pay against dentists' charges and against private plan payments, so it is wider where plans pay dentists much less than their list prices. The state comparison shows the full fee and the network price side by side for each state.
Full fee or network price, state by state
Crown: median of 18 states, full fee
$1,713
| Highest: Massachusetts | $2,443 |
| Median | $1,713 |
| Lowest: Maryland | $982 |
Insured patients meet the full fee too, in two situations. Out of network, the plan pays its share of its own allowance and the office may bill the difference up to its list price. And once a plan's yearly maximum is used, $1,500 in the example plan from Covered California, further work that year is paid by the patient, often at the network price if the office stays bound by its network agreement, otherwise at the full fee. The estimator's out of network option shows the first case.
Ways the bill gets smaller
Ask for the cash price before the visit. Some offices give patients who pay at the time of service a lower price than their list, or a written fee for each code. Asking for the codes and the price of each is the simplest way to compare offices and to read a quote against the estimate for your state.
Dental schools and community health centers. Treatment by students under supervision in a dental school, and care at federally funded health centers that set fees by income, usually cost less than private offices, at the price of longer visits or waiting lists. Local health departments can say which ones exist near you.
Medicaid and CHIP. Every state Medicaid program covers dental care for enrolled children, and separate CHIP programs must cover the dental services needed to prevent disease, as the federal Medicaid agency explains. For adults, each state decides, and some cover only emergencies. The Medicaid dental page gives the level reported for each state.
Medicare. Original Medicare does not pay for routine cleanings, fillings or extractions, according to Medicare.gov; it covers dental services only in narrow cases tied to certain medical treatments. Some Medicare Advantage plans include dental benefits, with limits of their own.
A plan bought for the work ahead. An individual dental plan costs a monthly premium and usually pays preventive care first, basic work next and major work only after a waiting period. Comparing a year of premiums with what the plan would pay on the work you expect is a matter of arithmetic, which the insurance calculator does; the waiting period page shows why a plan bought for a crown next month may pay nothing for it.
What a plan would pay on a quote
Your share of the bill
$525
| Deductible | $50 |
| Your coinsurance | $475 |
| Plan share lost to the maximum | $0 |
Paying over time
Offices may offer payment plans, and lenders offer cards and loans for medical and dental bills. The cost depends on the rate. A crown at the median full fee of $1,713, repaid over 24 months, costs about $81 a month at the average rate of a 24-month personal loan from commercial banks, 11.90 %, and about $88 at the average credit card rate, 21.19 %, both from the Federal Reserve's G.19 release. Promotions that charge no interest if paid in full can bring back all the interest of the period when a balance remains; the financing page computes both cases.
What stays the same
Paying less should not change what is done. A dentist decides what a tooth needs; the patient decides whether to go ahead, with the price in hand. Delaying care to save money is a choice to discuss with the dentist, who can say what waiting may mean for a given tooth. This page gives prices and ways to pay, not advice about treatment.