How to Verify a Dental License in Massachusetts Before You Hire

The Board of Registration in Dentistry licenses dentists, dental hygienists and dental assistants for practice in Massachusetts.

It sits inside the Department of Public Health's Bureau of Health Professions Licensure (BHPL), and the state's verification site covers every license, registration and certification BHPL issues — which is why one search reaches all three professions.

The board also issues limited and faculty dental licenses and, for anesthesia, facility and practitioner permits — one hire can carry several board-issued credentials, each worth its own check.

How a candidate earns a license is the career-guide side — dentist licensure requirements in Massachusetts covers it.

This page is the employer's half: confirming the credential is real, current and attached to the right person.

Why the check belongs on the board's own lookup rather than a photocopy or an aggregator is in our guide to how to verify a dental license.

Massachusetts' official online lookup is the Massachusetts Health Professions License Verification site at checkahealthlicense.mass.gov, which covers the licenses, registrations and certifications BHPL issues.

Mass.gov says it checks the status of a health profession license, permit or certification, searchable by license number or last name.

Run the search yourself rather than filing the candidate's screenshot: match the record to the license number on the application, and save the status with the date.

The site also offers a bulk download of BHPL licensing data for re-checking a whole team.

Our review could not confirm whether an anesthesia permit appears as its own record in the results, so collect the paperwork below and put anything unclear to the board.

Anesthesia and sedation permits

If the associate will sedate, the permit is a separate board credential: 234 CMR 6.00 individual permits include Permit A (general anesthesia/deep sedation), B-1 (moderate sedation), B-2 (minimal sedation) and C (nitrous oxide-oxygen) — Permit L, local anesthesia, belongs to hygienists.

The facility needs its own check too: a dental facility where general anesthesia, deep, moderate or minimal sedation or nitrous oxide is given must hold a board-issued Facility Permit D for that anesthesia type unless exempt — match the associate's permit to what yours covers.

Dental hygienists are licensed by the same board and checked in the same place: run the candidate's name through the verification site and save the status the license record returns — before the first day, not after.

Local anesthesia by a hygienist runs on its own board permit: Permit L is the 234 CMR 6.00 permit for administration of local anesthesia by a dental hygienist, on the same list as the dentist permits.

Ask for a copy: licensees must post any individual anesthesia permit where the public can observe it at each practice site (234 CMR 5.04).

Radiography carries a training gate: under 234 CMR 5.09(1), RDHs and PHDHs may take dental radiographs only under a dentist's supervision and only after completing a CODA-standard radiology course.

Becoming an RDH is the worker's side — see dental hygienist requirements in Massachusetts.

Massachusetts licenses dental assistants — the board licenses dentists, dental hygienists and dental assistants — so an assistant hire is not a credential-free hire.

Rule 234 CMR 2.00 sorts assistants into four categories, and the category decides what you verify:

Our review could not confirm how each category appears in the search results — match whatever record returns to the category the candidate claims.

Our review found no separate state x-ray permit in 234 CMR 5.09 — the rule runs through training and examination instead.

An on-the-job trained assistant may take radiographs only under a dentist's supervision, after a radiology course and a pass on DANB's Radiation Health and Safety (RHS) exam or another board-approved exam within one year of the course (234 CMR 5.09); RDHs, PHDHs, EFDAs, CAs and formally trained assistants may take radiographs under a dentist's supervision once they have completed a CODA-standard radiology course (234 CMR 5.09(1)).

For the DANB piece, go to the certifier: DANB's Verify Credentials tool confirms whether a person holds DANB credentials.

How someone becomes a CA, EFDA or FTDA is the worker's side — see dental assistant requirements in Massachusetts.

What the search returns about discipline, our review could not confirm — use the channel built for it: state dental boards must report to the National Practitioner Data Bank any action based on professional competence or conduct that revokes, suspends or restricts a dentist's license, censures, reprimands or places the dentist on probation, or accepts a license surrender, and NPDB rules explicitly count a state Board of Dentistry among the boards that report.

Only eligible entities may query the NPDB — hospitals, and health care entities that provide care and run a formal peer review process with written procedures, notice and a hearing.

Any practitioner can run a self-query, and results go only to the practitioner, who chooses who sees them; where your practice does not qualify, ask the candidate to run one and share it.

NPDB queries explains who qualifies and how the ask works.

Other states: dental licenses are issued and verified state by state, so a candidate who practiced elsewhere needs a check with each of those boards — the parent guide walks the process.

And if an associate is coming from another Massachusetts practice, non-competes in Massachusetts are the adjacent question to settle before the offer.

Keep one file per hire — the date you ran the search, the records it returned and the status each showed.

Boards refresh their lookups at very different speeds — the Texas board says it updates daily, Oklahoma's weekly, Wyoming's bi-monthly, as of the board statements reviewed in October 2026 — so the date on your capture is part of the evidence.

Re-run the search when a license or permit comes up for renewal, and refresh the DANB and radiography proof with it.

Round the file out with the paperwork the lookup may not show: verification from DANB or whichever other board-approved body certified your assistant, the radiology course and RHS (or other board-approved exam) pass, copies of any individual anesthesia permit, and your facility's own Permit D for the anesthesia you deliver, if sedation happens on site and no exemption applies.

When you need an official record, a certified statement of a license is requested separately through the Health Professions Licensing Portal — the page we reviewed did not state the fee, so check there first.

A license check is not an exclusion screen: OIG advises health care entities to routinely check the LEIE so that new hires and current employees are not on it — OIG exclusion checks explains when that applies to a dental practice.