A dental therapist's scope sits between a hygienist's and a dentist's: the state statutes that license the role authorize work such as preparing and placing fillings, fitting temporary and preformed crowns, and extracting teeth in named categories — and every statute verified for this page ties that work to a supervising dentist.
Prescribing authority appears in none of them, sedation is barred wherever the verified rules speak, and none of them allows independent practice.
Core procedures: fillings, extractions, temporary crowns
The clearest statutory picture of the restorative authority is Colorado's, because the statute names the procedures.
Under C.R.S. §12-220-508, effective January 1, 2023, a Colorado dental therapist may prepare and place direct restorations in primary and permanent teeth, place temporary and preformed crowns, and extract erupted primary teeth and periodontally diseased permanent teeth with +3 to +4 mobility — all initially under a dentist's direct supervision.
Maine's law works from a similar list.
A Maine dental therapist — a title built on a Maine dental hygienist license with additional authorization (32 M.R.S. §18302) — may perform listed procedures including simple cavity preparations and restorations and simple extractions, in limited practice settings under a written practice agreement and a Maine-licensed dentist's general supervision (32 M.R.S. §18377).
Michigan licenses dental therapists to provide a statute-listed set of services under a dentist's supervision (MCL 333.16656, 2018 PA 463, effective March 27, 2019); the services list itself was not among the sources verified for this page, so pull it from the statute or the Michigan board before relying on a specific procedure.
There is also a federal track.
In Alaska, the Indian Health Service's Community Health Aide Program trains and certifies dental health aide therapists (DHATs) for Alaska Native villages under 25 U.S.C. §1616l — and the same statute defines their procedural ceiling: DHATs may do pulpal therapy (other than pulpotomies on baby teeth) or extract adult teeth only after consulting a licensed dentist, and are barred from other oral surgery, though the statute counts uncomplicated extractions as outside oral surgery.
One question deserves a straight answer because it is asked so often: can a dental therapist do composite bonding?
The statutes verified here authorize by procedure category — Colorado says "direct restorations," Maine says "simple cavity preparations and restorations" — without naming filling materials or techniques.
Whether a specific technique falls inside your state's restorative authorization, and inside your supervising agreement, is a question for that state's dental board and the written agreement itself; nothing in a statute naming "restorations" settles it in advance.
For the role around these procedures — training, pay, how therapists fit the team — start with the dental therapist career guide.
What dental therapists cannot do
The extraction line is the sharpest.
Minnesota's advanced dental therapist — the state's higher tier — may extract periodontally diseased permanent teeth with +3 to +4 mobility only with the collaborating dentist's advance authorization, and the statute then draws a hard prohibition: an ADT "shall not extract a tooth for any patient if the tooth is unerupted, impacted, fractured, or needs to be sectioned for removal" (Minnesota Statutes §150A.106).
Idaho's rules (IDAPA 24.31.01) take more off the table: dental therapists there are barred from sedation, from periodontal scaling and root planing, and from most extractions.
Their authorized activities are those a supervising dentist practicing in the same setting specifies, under a written collaborative practice agreement.
Sedation and narcotics are separate walls.
Minnesota's administrative rule (Minnesota Rules 3100.3600) bars dental therapists — alongside dental hygienists and licensed dental assistants — from administering general anesthesia or deep, moderate or minimal sedation.
Minnesota also prohibits dental therapists from dispensing or administering narcotic drugs (Minnesota Statutes §150A.105), and Arizona's statute doubles the bar: no narcotics, and no independently billing any individual or third-party payor (A.R.S. §32-1276.03(C)).
In the Alaska federal program, the boundary is written as oral surgery: beyond the consulted pulpal therapy and extractions the statute allows, DHATs are barred from other oral surgery (25 U.S.C. §1616l).
Reading the list, the pattern to notice is that each prohibition is a specific state's rule, not a national one.
A state not mentioned in this section may simply have no dental therapy statute to draw lines in yet — and states that do may draw them differently next session.
Every line above is one state's law — boards decide
Supervision and collaborative agreements
No procedure in the first section floats free of a dentist.
Every statute this page verified ties the work to a named, state-licensed dentist, and most spell the relationship out as a written agreement: a collaborative management agreement in Minnesota (Minnesota Statutes §150A.105), a written practice agreement in Maine (32 M.R.S. §18377), a collaborative agreement in Vermont that must be reviewed, updated and submitted to the Board annually and whenever it changes (26 V.S.A. §§613–614), a written practice plan contract in Washington (RCW 18.265), and a written articulated plan in Colorado (C.R.S. §12-220-508).
Supervision starts tight and loosens with hours where the state sets a ladder.
Arizona requires 1,000 hours of clinical practice under a dentist's direct supervision before a therapist may enter a written collaborative practice agreement, and a dentist may hold no more than four such agreements (A.R.S. §32-1276.04).
Nevada keeps a therapist under the authorizing dentist's direct supervision until 500, 1,000 or 1,500 clinical hours, depending on prior licensure and hygiene experience (NRS 631.3122(1)).
Wisconsin requires at least 2,000 hours under direct or indirect supervision before general supervision applies (Wisconsin Statutes §447.06).
Colorado lets a therapist move restorations and extractions from direct to indirect supervision after 1,000 hours, with the board able to waive up to 600 hours based on prior hygiene or dental therapy practice (C.R.S. §12-220-508).
The dentist's side is capped too, which shapes how many therapy roles a practice can carry: a Minnesota collaborating dentist may hold agreements with no more than five dental therapists or advanced dental therapists at once (Minnesota Statutes §150A.105); Wisconsin's cap is four; Connecticut's is two, and Connecticut's collaborating dentist is professionally responsible and legally liable for the therapist's authorized services (Connecticut General Statutes §20-126y(f)).
Colorado limits a dentist to three full-time-equivalent dental therapists at once, plus two more in an FQHC or rural health clinic, with a board waiver process (C.R.S. §12-220-508(3)).
Maine, Michigan and Washington let therapists run part of the team in return.
Maine allows a dental therapist to be delegated a dentist's responsibility to supervise up to 2 dental hygienists and 3 unlicensed persons per practice setting through the written practice agreement (32 M.R.S. §18377).
Michigan caps a therapist at supervising 3 dental assistants and 2 dental hygienists in any one practice setting (MCL 333.16656).
Washington caps the total at three EFDAs, assistants and hygienists combined (RCW 18.265).
The agreement is not the only constraint: several of these statutes also pin therapy to settings and patient mixes — Washington's therapists to federally qualified health centers, tribal FQHCs and FQHC look-alikes (RCW 18.265), Wisconsin's to a dental health shortage area or a patient base that is at least 50 percent Medical Assistance, uninsured or other listed groups (Wisconsin Statutes §447.06).
The full state-by-state table of settings and supervision ladders is the job of our states that allow dental therapists page.
For what direct, indirect and general supervision mean as legal categories, the employer guide to dental supervision levels unpacks the ladder.
Prescribing
Can a dental therapist prescribe antibiotics?
On the record this page verified: no. Not one statute checked grants a dental therapist prescriptive authority, and Washington's states the negative outright — a dental therapist there "does not have the authority to prescribe drugs" (RCW 18.265).
Where medication authority does appear, it is drawn much narrower: dispensing and administering a short list of drug categories inside the dentist relationship.
Washington lets a dental therapist dispense or orally administer nonnarcotic analgesics, anti-inflammatories, preventive agents and antibiotics within the practice plan contract (RCW 18.265).
A Minnesota advanced dental therapist may provide, dispense and administer analgesics, anti-inflammatories and antibiotics within the collaborative agreement and with the dentist's authorization (Minnesota Statutes §150A.106).
Colorado's therapists may dispense and administer nonnarcotic analgesics, anti-inflammatories and antibiotics under the written articulated plan, with the supervising dentist's authorization — and may give local anesthesia (C.R.S. §12-220-508(1)(c)).
Narcotics are the bright line wherever the sources speak: Minnesota prohibits dental therapists from dispensing or administering them (Minnesota Statutes §150A.105), and Arizona's statute pairs the same prohibition with the independent-billing bar (A.R.S. §32-1276.03(C)).
The working translation, on the record this page verified: a dental therapist is not a prescriber.
Where antibiotic authority exists, it is dispensing or administering with the dentist's authorization inside the written agreement, not an independent prescription — and the agreement is where that authority is defined.
For practices, that makes the medication paragraph of the agreement load-bearing: treat whatever is not written there as authority the therapist does not have.
Can a dental therapist own a practice?
No statute in this page's research authorizes a dental therapist to own or run an independent dental practice.
The therapy statutes are built the opposite way — around a named supervising dentist rather than an owner-operator.
Washington's law states it flatly: "A dental therapist may not practice independently" (RCW 18.265).
Arizona bars therapists from independently billing any individual or third-party payor (A.R.S. §32-1276.03(C)).
Connecticut goes further structurally: the collaborating dentist is professionally responsible and legally liable for the therapist's authorized services (Connecticut General Statutes §20-126y(f)).
The contrast with hygiene is worth knowing because it trips people up.
Colorado lets a licensed dental hygienist perform unsupervised dental hygiene and own a place where supervised or unsupervised dental hygiene is performed (C.R.S. §12-220-503) — a hygienist ownership exception with no verified analog in any dental therapy statute this page checked.
So the honest answer: dental therapy is a dentist-tied license everywhere this page verified it.
If ownership is the goal, this page did not research who may own a dental practice state by state — treat any blanket answer, including a reassuring one, as unverified until the state dental board confirms it.
How scope differs from a hygienist's
The hygiene baseline is preventive work.
The duties the Bureau of Labor Statistics lists for dental hygienists — removing tartar, stains and plaque; applying sealants and fluorides; taking and developing x-rays; assessing oral health and reporting findings to dentists; documenting care; educating patients — contain no drilling and no extracting.
Dental therapy is the role built to cross that line: the authorizations in the first section of this page — restorations, crowns, extractions in named categories — sit outside that hygiene list.
Training differs too.
Arizona licensure requires graduation from a dental therapy program accredited (or initially accredited) by the ADA's Commission on Dental Accreditation (A.R.S. §32-1276.01), and Minnesota's advanced tier stacks 2,000 hours of dental therapy practice and a master's program onto the therapy license (Minnesota Statutes §150A.106).
Two of the statutes verified here stack the licenses literally: Maine defines its dental therapist as a person who holds a Maine dental hygienist license with additional authorization (32 M.R.S. §18302), and Connecticut's dental therapist must be a licensed dental hygienist practicing in a public health facility under a dentist's general supervision (Connecticut General Statutes §20-126y).
The lines also cross in both directions, which is where the comparison gets genuinely fiddly: restorative function for hygienists is its own state-by-state question, and Idaho's dental therapists are barred from periodontal scaling and root planing — the tartar, stain and plaque removal the BLS hygiene duty list names.
Those adjacent questions have their own pages: dental hygienist scope of practice for the hygiene baseline, can hygienists place fillings for the restorative-function question, and hygienist vs dental therapist for the head-to-head.
This page is general career information, not legal or clinical advice. Scope of practice is state law and it moves — verify the current rule with the state dental board before you plan a career step or a hire around anything above.