Hiring a Dental Anesthesiologist

Start with the decision that shapes everything else: whether you need a dental anesthesiologist employed in the practice, or a mobile dental anesthesiologist scheduled for case days.

A dental anesthesiologist is a dentist whose specialty is managing pain, anxiety and overall patient health during dental, oral, maxillofacial and adjunctive surgical or diagnostic procedures throughout the entire perioperative period — the provider a practice brings in when a case calls for deep sedation or general anesthesia.

It is one of the 12 dental specialties the ADA's National Commission recognizes, with its definition adopted in March 2019.

You need one when the case, the patient, or your state's rules take sedation past what you are credentialed to deliver yourself — a line that is state-specific.

Michigan's rules, for example, bar a general dentist without a dental anesthesiology or oral surgery specialty license from giving general anesthesia or deep, moderate or minimal sedation in the office unless the dentist meets training and competency requirements, so confirm with your state dental board where your own permit ends before you decide which provider to bring in.

The national supply is small, and it shapes the hiring model.

ADA HPI counted 159 dentists in dental anesthesiology among professionally active U.S. dentists in 2025, up from 97 in 2021 — with two caveats: a dentist holding certificates in multiple areas is counted in each, and HPI flags its 2023–2025 figures for data-maintenance changes; it has tracked the specialty only since recognition, so the series is short.

A pool that size shapes the hiring decision: with a specialty this small, an employed seat is a commitment to make deliberately, and the alternative is a contracted mobile anesthesiologist who travels in for scheduled cases.

HPI's practice-modality data fold the specialty into "Other", so there is no published split between employed and contracted anesthesiologists — let your case volume make the call.

Where to look follows from the model.

For a contracted provider, start close to home: ask the practices in your area that run sedation-heavy schedules who they bring in, and ask your state dental association how specialist dentists are listed or take referrals in your state.

For an employed seat, post the opening as you would any specialist dentist role and screen through a defined process — our dental hiring hub collects the employer guide for each role and step.

For the clinician's side of the role — the training path and the day-to-day work — see our dental anesthesiologist career guide.

This page stays on the employer's decisions.

Check the license first, the permit second, certification third.

Every candidate is a dentist, and the license to practice dentistry is issued state by state — in Connecticut, for instance, no one may practice dentistry or dental medicine without a license from the Department of Public Health (Connecticut General Statutes § 20-106).

Require an unencumbered license in your state and verify it at the source, not from a photocopy.

The sedation layer is where states diverge, in name and in shape.

Michigan may issue a health-profession specialty license in dental anesthesiology, while the New Jersey State Board of Dentistry issues enteral sedation, parenteral conscious sedation, general anesthesia, local anesthesia and specialty permits in ADA-recognized fields.

Other states attach the credential to the dentist's license rather than issuing a separate permit.

Vermont board rules require dentists using minimal or moderate sedation to hold a minimal and moderate sedation specialty, and those using deep sedation or general anesthesia to hold a deep sedation and general anesthesia specialty.

Wisconsin places a Class II – Enteral, Class II – Parenteral or Class III sedation specialty on the dentist credential, issued by DSPS, and Colorado's credential roster lists Deep Sedation/General Anesthesia, Moderate Sedation, Minimal Sedation and Local Anesthesia credential types.

What a permit demands varies too.

California requires an active general anesthesia permit plus a dentist license or permit to administer or order deep sedation or general anesthesia on an outpatient basis, with current ACLS certification, and a pediatric endorsement for patients under seven.

Montana's deep sedation/general anesthesia permit requires a CODA-accredited oral and maxillofacial surgery or dental anesthesiology residency, recent advanced cardiac life support, and an initial office inspection, with a temporary permit possible before the inspection.

Ask candidates for the permit itself, its level and its endorsements — not a title on a CV.

If you are contracting a mobile provider, the credential question does not stop at the provider.

Whether the host office also needs its own facility permit or inspection is decided state by state, so don't assume your provider's permit covers your site.

West Virginia is one example: when a physician or dentist anesthesiologist provides anesthesia in a dental office, the facility must be inspected and approved for a Class 4 permit and the dentist must hold at least a Class 2 permit.

Texas writes portability into the permit itself: a sedation/anesthesia permit application must state whether the dentist provides the permitted service at more than one location, and a dentist sedating at multiple locations must make sure each one is supplied, equipped, staffed and maintained to the standard of care.

Board certification is a separate, voluntary layer.

The specialty's National Commission–recognized certifying board is the American Dental Board of Anesthesiology, one of 11 recognized certifying boards in dentistry.

ADBA board eligibility takes a dental degree from a school accredited by CODA or CDAC, a license to practice dentistry in the U.S. or Canada, and a completed three-year CODA-accredited dental anesthesiology residency or an equivalent three-year anesthesiology residency — and CODA's accreditation standards set the dental anesthesiology residency minimum at 36 months.

Screen candidates in the National Commission's three tiers: board-certified (residency completed, exam passed, continuing education required to stay certified), board-eligible (residency completed, exam not yet passed), or educationally qualified (residency completed and a state license held, without certification).

Certification distinguishes candidates within the specialty; it does not replace the state permit.

Verify at the source.

Connecticut's eLicense lookup lists a Dental Anesthesia/Conscious Sedation Permit as its own searchable license type, Virginia's DHP lookup includes Enteral Conscious/Moderate Sedation and Deep Sedation/General Anesthesia occupations, and Alabama's Licensee Lookup lists Oral Conscious Sedation, Parenteral Sedation Permit and General Anesthesia.

In Nevada, verification is not optional: it is unprofessional conduct under NAC 631.230(1)(p) for a dentist who owns a practice to fail to verify the license of a dentist before offering employment or contracting for services.

Our research found no pay benchmark published under this role's name.

The federal SOC system has no "dental anesthesiologist" occupation — dentist specialists without a code of their own, dental anesthesiologists among them, fall into the "Dentists, All Other Specialists" catch-all, SOC 29-1029.

No BLS wage figure is a dental-anesthesiology wage, so don't quote one as such.

Two labeled anchors still frame the budget.

In the BLS OEWS May 2025 industry table for offices of dentists, "Dentists, All Other Specialists" numbered 2,570, with a median wage of $224,990 and a middle range of $159,530 (25th percentile) to $389,520 (75th percentile) — a bucket that also holds endodontists, periodontists and other dentist specialists, so it describes specialist pay in dental offices rather than pricing this specialty.

ADA HPI's Survey of Dental Practice separately reports 2025 average net income of $215,320 for general dentists and $346,520 for specialists — net income across all specialties, not a salary for this one.

For the mobile model, our research found nothing published: no primary source we checked gives typical mobile dental anesthesia fees — per hour, per case or per patient — so treat every quote as a local negotiation.

HPI's practice-modality data do not break the specialty out of "Other" either, so there is no published split between employed and contracted anesthesiologists to benchmark against.

Structure the decision instead of hunting for a number.

An employed anesthesiologist competes with the specialist-dentist market your metro actually shows — anchor against the specialist figures above and your metro's own market.

A contracted one sets a price with you directly, and the variables to settle up front are case mix, cases per day, travel, and who supplies staff and equipment.

Get more than one quote and compare what each includes; your state's staffing rules set the floor under any of it.

Write the posting around the four things to nail down before you publish: the model (mobile contract or employment), the case mix your practice treats (pediatric, special-needs, surgical, general), the schedule and volume you can sustain, and the exact state credential you require — name the permit level, not "sedation experience."

If the role serves more than one office, say so; a Texas sedation/anesthesia permit application must state whether the dentist provides the permitted service at more than one location, so a multi-office posting should match.

Run the search the way you would for any dentist hire rather than improvising a one-off: defined stages, the reference checks you would run on any dentist, and a decision timeline you keep.

The employer guides on our dental hiring hub cover each step, and our dental hiring process guide lays out the stages end to end.

Screen documents before conversations.

License number and standing; the sedation or general anesthesia permit with its level and endorsements; ACLS currency where the state ties it to the permit, as California and Montana do; and DEA registration if the anesthesiologist will dispense controlled substances — DEA requires a separate registration for each principal place of business where controlled substances are dispensed, and a practitioner practicing in more than one state needs a separate registration in each, built on that state's authority first.

For malpractice history, ask the candidate for a National Practitioner Data Bank self-query.

Any practitioner can run one at any time, and the NPDB does not send self-query results to third parties — the candidate chooses who sees it.

Direct queries are not open to every employer; eligibility runs through hospitals and health care entities with a formal peer-review process, which is why the self-query is the practical route for a private practice.

Interview on cases, not adjectives: how they prepare an unfamiliar office, what equipment they bring versus require, what their emergency protocol demands from your team, and how a past complication was documented and communicated.

If a trial day makes sense, pay it as work — in 2018 the U.S. Department of Labor found a Nashville dental practice violated federal minimum wage rules by requiring job candidates to work a "working interview" without pay.

Verify everything before the first case, not after: license, permit level and endorsements, ACLS and DEA registration where they apply, and malpractice coverage.

Nevada makes the point bluntly — a practice-owning dentist there commits unprofessional conduct by failing to verify a dentist's license before offering employment or a contract.

Settle the facility question in writing first.

Whether your office needs its own inspection or approval is state-specific — West Virginia, for one, requires the facility to be approved at Class 4 before a dentist anesthesiologist brings anesthesia into it — so ask your state dental board what your site needs and who schedules the inspection.

Divide sedation-day roles explicitly: what the anesthesiologist owns, what your assistants do, who monitors recovery, and who handles documentation.

States formalize parts of this — California requires the dentist who administers or orders general anesthesia or deep sedation to be physically present in the facility while the patient is under, and for patients under 13 requires the operating dentist plus at least two additional personnel present throughout; Washington lets a dental anesthesia assistant accept delegation only from an oral and maxillofacial surgeon or dental anesthesiologist holding a valid Washington general anesthesia permit.

Map your staff to your state's rules before the schedule fills.

Retention follows the same logic in both models.

In the employed model, build the seat around the training: protected sedation days, a caseload that uses the residency, and a say in case planning.

In the contracted model, make your office easy to keep on a provider's schedule: run cases on time, keep your team briefed, and agree equipment checks in advance.

Calendar the expirations — permits, ACLS, DEA, malpractice — and re-verify at each renewal, because the credential you hired is the credential you have to keep.

Put the arrangement in writing before the first case — duties, coverage days, who supplies what, cancellation terms — and have your attorney review it, because contractor-versus-employee status is a legal determination, not a label.