D6240 Dental Code: What It Covers and How to Bill It

At the front desk, a treatment plan for a three-unit bridge lands on your desk, and somebody has to pick the pontic code before the claim goes out. The D6240 dental code is one of five pontic choices on a bridge, and picking the wrong one is a common reason insurance kicks the claim back. This guide breaks down what D6240 covers, how it differs from D6241, D6242, D6245, and D6250, and what to check before you submit it.

D6240 is the CDT code for a pontic, the artificial tooth that fills a gap in a fixed bridge, made of porcelain fused to high noble metal. A pontic is not a crown and it is not the whole bridge. The teeth on either side of the gap get retainer crowns, billed with their own codes such as D6750 or D6740, and the pontic in the middle gets D6240 or a code like D6241, D6242, D6245, or D6250 depending on the material. A three-unit bridge with two high noble retainer crowns and one high noble pontic is typically billed as two units of D6750 and one unit of D6240. Most dental plans cover a percentage of the bridge under major services, subject to a missing tooth clause, a waiting period, or a frequency limit on replacing the same tooth. The office should confirm these details with the patient's plan before treatment starts, not after the claim is filed.

D6240 describes a single pontic unit, porcelain fused to high noble metal, used anywhere in a fixed bridge. High noble metal means the alloy is mostly gold, platinum, or palladium. That matters to the payer because high noble metal substructures usually get the highest reimbursement tier among the metal based pontic codes.

The code is per pontic, not per bridge. If a bridge replaces two missing teeth side by side, you may need two pontic units, and each one gets its own line on the claim form. The office picks which pontic code applies based on the lab's material, not based on what the plan pays the most for.

The pontic codes split by material, and the difference between them is what the lab actually casts:

• D6241 dental code: pontic, porcelain fused to predominantly base metal
• D6242 dental code: pontic, porcelain fused to noble metal (a step below high noble)
• D6245: the D6245 dental code description is pontic, porcelain/ceramic, meaning there is no metal substructure at all
• D6250 dental code: pontic, resin with high noble metal

A lab slip or a crown and bridge prescription should state the metal type in plain language. If it says "PFM, high noble," that's D6240. If it says "all ceramic" or "zirconia, no metal," that's D6245. Billing from the lab slip, not from habit, is the single easiest way to stop downcoding on this part of the claim.

The teeth on either side of the gap are the abutments, the natural teeth (or implants) that hold the bridge up. The dental code for bridge abutment is actually a retainer crown code billed on that specific tooth, there is no separate code just called "abutment."

If the abutment needs a crown that's porcelain fused to high noble metal, you bill D6750. The D6750 dental code description is retainer crown, porcelain fused to high noble metal, the same material family as D6240. If the abutment needs an all ceramic crown instead, you bill D6740 dental code, the ceramic retainer crown. Match the retainer material to the pontic material when you can. Plans often flag a claim for review when a high noble pontic is paired with a base metal retainer on the same bridge, because it reads like two different lab slips got mixed up.

A few patterns show up again and again on bridge claims:

1. Missing tooth clause. Many plans will not pay toward replacing a tooth that was already missing before the patient's coverage started. We've written a full breakdown of what a missing tooth clause means for your claim if you want the plan language to look for.
2. No pre-treatment estimate on file. Bridges are expensive enough that some plans expect a predetermination before they'll pay in full. See how dental predetermination works for the steps.
3. Downgrade to a lower material code. If the plan's fee schedule only allows base metal, a high noble pontic like D6240 may get paid at the D6241 rate even though the lab used high noble metal. That's a contract term, not a documentation problem, and it should show up on the EOB.
4. Frequency limit on bridge replacement. Most plans will not pay for a new bridge on the same span inside a set number of years.
5. Claim form errors. The tooth numbers for the pontic and the abutments need to line up with the bridge design on the form itself. Our guide to filling out the ADA dental claim form covers where this goes wrong.

A bridge is not a same-day decision for most patients, so this is exactly the kind of case where checking benefits before treatment starts saves a rebill later. The ADA Health Policy Institute's 2026 survey found that 43.3% of dentists already use AI for at least one task in the practice, and insurance verification is the number two planned use, at 32.6% planned versus 13.6% in use today.

At practices running Valian, the front desk signs in and runs the check in one click, per patient, before the bridge treatment plan goes to the lab. The office sees the plan's major services percentage, any missing tooth clause language, waiting periods, and frequency limits on the same screen, so the pontic and retainer codes can be chosen with the coverage already confirmed. The office still picks the actual procedure codes, Valian does not. You can read more about how Valian's insurance verification works or search a specific plan on our payer list to see how a bridge benefit is typically structured under the CDT code set.

If your team wants to see this run on a real bridge case before the next treatment plan goes out, you can book time to see insurance verification in action.

Is D6240 a bridge?

No. D6240 is one piece of a bridge, the pontic, which is the fake tooth filling the gap. The bridge as a whole also includes retainer crowns on the abutment teeth, billed with separate codes like D6750 or D6740.

Is D6245 a crown?

No. D6245 is a pontic code, same category as D6240, just a different material (porcelain/ceramic with no metal substructure). A retainer crown on an abutment tooth is billed with a different code, such as D6740 or D6750.

What is a Pontic porcelain ceramic?

A porcelain/ceramic pontic is the artificial tooth in a bridge made entirely of ceramic material, with no metal substructure underneath. It's billed as D6245, separate from the porcelain fused to metal pontic codes like D6240, D6241, and D6242.

What are the D codes for dental services?

D codes are the CDT (Current Dental Terminology) codes dentists use to bill every procedure, from exams to crowns to bridges. They're maintained and updated on a regular cycle, and each one describes a single, specific procedure, like D6240 for a high noble metal pontic.