A periodontist is a dentist who specializes in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of periodontal disease and in the placement of dental implants, according to the American Academy of Periodontology's patient-facing site, perio.org.
In practice, a periodontist is the specialist a general dentist refers gum disease and implant cases to.
Becoming one takes a CODA-accredited residency of at least three consecutive academic years (a minimum of 30 months of instruction) after dental school, and board certification — where a periodontist pursues it — comes from the American Board of Periodontology.
What is a periodontist?
A periodontist is a dentist who specializes in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of periodontal disease and in the placement of dental implants — the American Academy of Periodontology's own description of the specialty, on perio.org.
The association's page also says periodontists receive three additional years of education beyond dental school.
The accreditation standard behind that training is a floor, not a typical length: the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) requires a periodontics residency to run "three consecutive academic years with a minimum of 30 months of instruction," with at least two consecutive years of clinical education in a single educational setting (Standard 4-1).
Treat 30 months as the minimum a program cannot go below, not as how long programs typically run.
What does a periodontist do day to day?
A periodontist treats periodontal disease — infection and inflammation of the gums and the bone that supports the teeth — and surgically places dental implants.
Cases arrive almost entirely by referral: a general dentist identifies gum disease beyond routine care, or a patient needing an implant, and sends the case to a periodontist.
Implant placement is a live overlap in dentistry rather than a periodontist's exclusive territory — general dentists and oral surgeons also place implants, and who does implants in a given case varies by dentist training and practice.
This article states that overlap exists; it doesn't adjudicate which provider is the right choice for a given case.
A dental hygienist often performs the periodontal maintenance and scaling a periodontist's patients need between visits.
How you become a periodontist
The path starts the same way as every dental specialty: a bachelor's degree, four years of dental school for a DDS or DMD, and licensure.
From there, a periodontics residency accredited by the Commission on Dental Accreditation (CODA) must run at least three consecutive academic years with a minimum of 30 months of instruction (Standard 4-1) — the American Academy of Periodontology describes this as "three additional years of education beyond dental school."
Board certification is voluntary and comes from the American Board of Periodontology.
Periodontists earn it through a written Qualifying Examination and an Oral Examination, after completing a CODA-accredited periodontics program — see board certification in periodontology for how that two-exam process works.
For the broader framework of how CODA accreditation, the match, and certifying boards work across all 12 dental specialties, see dental residency & board certification.
For the full step-by-step path, see how to become a periodontist.
How competitive is matching into a periodontics residency?
In the 2026-2027 cycle of the Postdoctoral Dental Matching Program (National Matching Services), 296 applicants competed for 132 periodontics residency positions, and 129 matched — see how competitive periodontics residency actually is for the full numbers, why there's no published acceptance rate, and why periodontics doesn't have a multi-year trend the way orthodontics, oral surgery, and pediatric dentistry do.
Periodontist vs. general dentist, and where the specialty fits
A general dentist provides broad-scope primary oral care and refers periodontal and implant cases that go beyond routine treatment; a periodontist has completed the additional CODA-accredited residency described above and focuses on gum disease and implant placement.
Periodontics sits alongside prosthodontics among the 12 recognized dental specialties, and, like endodontics and oral surgery, it runs mostly on referrals from general dentists rather than patients booking directly.
See periodontist vs. general dentist for which cases a GP keeps, how the referral runs both ways, and how the implant overlap between the two works.
To see current openings, browse periodontist jobs.
How much does a periodontist earn?
There's no periodontics-specific federal wage figure and no salary page for this role on DentistryHires — the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics groups periodontists under the broad "Dentists, all other specialists" category rather than tracking the specialty on its own code.
See which dental specialty pays the most, which explains that grouping and ranks the dental SOC codes that do exist side by side.