How to Verify a Dental License in Alaska Before You Hire

Alaska credentials its dental workforce through the Board of Dental Examiners, the nine-member board created by AS 08.36.010.

The board's statutes and regulations are published by the Alaska Department of Commerce, Community, and Economic Development's Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing — that division is the door you'll walk through for verification.

Alaska law also tells you what the board has to keep.

Under AS 08.36.070 it must maintain a registry of licensed dentists, licensed dental hygienists and registered dental assistants who are in good standing.

Under AS 08.36.091 it must also keep a registry of the licenses, certificates, registrations and endorsements it has revoked, plus status information for each licensee and each registered dental assistant.

So the raw material for a pre-hire check lives in board records, covering licensed dentists, licensed dental hygienists and registered dental assistants — but what you verify differs by role.

This page is the Alaska branch of our guide to how to verify a dental license.

One line before you start: this page is about checking credentials someone already claims.

How a dentist becomes licensed in Alaska is a different question, covered in our guide to dentist licensure requirements in Alaska.

Start with the license itself.

Verify with the Board of Dental Examiners — reach it through the Division of Corporations, Business and Professional Licensing — and match whatever record the board gives you back to your candidate: full name, plus the license number from their application if they gave you one.

What you're confirming is what the statute requires the board to track: that the dentist is licensed and in good standing, and the status information the board keeps for each licensee.

Treat the board's record as the check, not a copy — a license card or résumé line can predate a lapse or a board action.

If the record doesn't match the person in front of you, or a claimed credential doesn't appear, contact the board before moving the hire forward.

A clean dental license is also not the whole check for an associate.

Sedation permits are issued by the board separately from the license: under 12 AAC 28.010, a dentist must hold a deep sedation or general anesthesia permit before administering deep sedation or general anesthesia, and under 12 AAC 28.015 a dentist needs a moderate sedation permit to give moderate sedation — or minimal sedation to a patient under 13 — unless exempt.

Ask which sedation levels the role actually covers, then verify the matching permit.

If your associate will prescribe or dispense controlled substances, that is its own verification — our guide to DEA registration verification covers it.

A hygienist's license sits in the same board registries as a dentist's — the good-standing registry covers licensed dental hygienists — so verify it the same way: name match, status confirmed through the board.

The base license is only the start.

Two more credentials are issued separately from it: under 12 AAC 28.320 the board issues dental hygienists a separate certification to administer local anesthetic agents, and under AS 08.32.085 it issues a restorative function endorsement to licensed hygienists who qualify.

So write down the duties the role includes before you run the check.

If the schedule assumes your hygienist numbs patients or places restorations, verify the certification or endorsement with the board — a résumé line won't confirm either one.

What each function involves is covered in our guide to dental hygienist requirements in Alaska.

Registered dental assistants appear in the board's registries alongside licensed dentists and hygienists (AS 08.36.070), and assistants hold duty-specific board certificates for particular functions.

Two the statutes name:

• Coronal polishing. Under AS 08.36.342 the board issues a coronal polishing certificate to an assistant who completes a board-approved program; it allows coronal polishing of teeth without calculus under a dentist's direct supervision. The board keeps its own registry of assistants certified to perform coronal polishing, and the certificate renews every two years, by February 28 of odd-numbered years (12 AAC 28.840).
• Restorative functions. Under AS 08.36.344 the board issues a restorative function certificate, which allows placing, carving, contouring and adjusting restorations in a cavity the dentist has prepared, under direct supervision.

Radiography works differently, and it's where out-of-state assumptions break.

Under AS 08.36.346(a), an Alaska dentist may delegate the exposure and development of radiographs to a dental assistant under indirect supervision — the statute names no separate radiography certificate.

Alaska repealed its dental radiological equipment statute, AS 08.36.075, in 2022.

So don't disqualify an Alaska assistant for lacking an x-ray card; check instead that the way you delegate and supervise fits the statute.

How these certificates fit the wider scope picture is covered in our guide to dental assistant requirements in Alaska.

If you're unsure how a specific assistant role is credentialed — registration, a duty certificate, or neither — ask the board rather than guessing.

For discipline, the statutes again tell you what the board keeps: under AS 08.36.091, a registry of every license, certificate, registration and endorsement it has revoked, plus status information for each licensee and registered dental assistant.

Revocation is what that registry statute names specifically — for anything short of revocation, or for more of a licensee's history than the registries show, ask the board.

Board discipline also follows dentists nationally.

Under federal NPDB rules, state dental boards must report actions based on professional competence or conduct that revoke, suspend or restrict a dentist's license, censure, reprimand or place a dentist on probation, or accept a license surrender — and those rules count a state Board of Dentistry as a reporting board.

Because the NPDB sends self-query results only to the practitioner, the candidate has to run one and choose to share it; our guide to NPDB queries covers when a practice can query directly.

An Alaska check covers Alaska credentials only.

A candidate who practiced elsewhere holds licenses other boards issued, so verify each of those with the board that issued it — and they may arrive with obligations attached, including restrictive covenants from a prior employer.

What Alaska law allows there is covered in our guide to non-competes in Alaska.

The stakes are not just the hire: under AS 08.36.315, the Alaska board may discipline a dentist who lets an employed or supervised hygienist or assistant perform a procedure in violation of AS 08.32.110 or AS 08.36.346.

Run the checks before the offer goes final — at minimum before the first patient — and save what you saw: for each credential, the type, the name and number you matched, the status the board's records showed, and who ran the check and when.

A dated record is what turns "we checked" into something you can produce later.

Re-verify when the job changes, not just at hire.

A new duty — local anesthesia, restorative functions, sedation — needs its own credential confirmed, and a credential you checked at hire can come up for renewal while the person is on your payroll; Alaska's coronal polishing certificates, for example, renew every two years.

A license check is also one layer of screening, not the whole stack.

If your practice bills Medicaid or CHIP, add exclusion screening: people and entities excluded by HHS-OIG can receive no payment from federal health care programs for items or services they furnish, and Medicaid and CHIP count as federal health care programs.

Our guide to OIG exclusion checks covers who to screen and how often.