How to Verify a Dental License in Nebraska Before You Hire

Nebraska credentials its dental professions through the DHHS Licensure Unit.

The DHHS dentistry page lists the credentials you will meet when hiring: dentist, dental hygienist, resident dentist, dental faculty, dentist locum tenens and dental assistant.

The Nebraska Board of Dentistry is the board that sets the state's dental rules, including permit regulations for dental assistants and hygienists.

Verification is not licensure: how someone earns a Nebraska credential is covered on our dentist licensure requirements in Nebraska page.

This page is about confirming it is real and current before day one.

Hiring outside Nebraska too?

Our how to verify a dental license guide covers the whole process.

DHHS's licensee-information page links "Look up individual licensee information" to the state's License Information System (LIS) search, and DHHS says certification and verification information can be obtained online through that system.

Run the candidate's name there before you rely on a photocopy of a license.

Treat the on-screen result as a starting point.

This research could not read the fields an LIS result displays, so for anything that decides a start date, order DHHS's written records: a written license verification costs $5.00 (as of October 7, 2026) but does not include discipline, school or examination information, or the DHHS seal.

A written license certification costs $25.00 (as of October 7, 2026) and, under the DHHS seal, includes the license number, the issue and expiration dates, how the license was granted, and any disciplinary action with the type and date of the action.

Where an expiration date or discipline matters, the certification is the document that answers it.

Sedation is a permit, not just a license.

Nebraska has general anesthesia, deep sedation and moderate sedation permit holders, each required to complete at least 6 hours of continuing education directly related to administration and management of anesthesia/sedation for the dental office.

This research could not confirm that a sedation permit displays in the LIS person search — for an associate who will sedate, ask for the permit and confirm it with DHHS.

Hygienists verify in the same system: dental hygienist is one of the credentials on the DHHS dentistry page, the same LIS lookup applies, and the same written verification and certification documents are available.

Confirm the hygienist's license the way you would a dentist's.

Then check permits.

The Board of Dentistry sets permit regulations for hygienists as well as assistants, and Nebraska's Expanded Function Restorative permits go to licensed dental assistants and licensed hygienists alike — Level I covers simple, one-surface restorations and Level II covers complex, multi-surface restorations, with Level II requiring that the holder already holds Level I.

If the role includes restorative functions, that permit is a separate record to confirm — ask for it rather than assuming the base license covers it.

What a Nebraska hygienist may do overall is scope-of-practice detail, and our dental hygienist requirements in Nebraska page owns that question.

Nebraska is unusual: under Legislative Bill 18, dental assistants may keep working unlicensed or pursue a dental assistant license.

So the first question for an assistant hire is which status the person holds — an unlicensed assistant is allowed, not a red flag.

Unlicensed assistants have no license record to look up — the credentials that matter are paperwork you check by hand.

X-rays are the big one: an unlicensed Nebraska dental assistant may take dental x-rays only if they are at least 18 and meet one of three routes: completing a dental radiography course at UNMC College of Dentistry, Creighton or Central Community College; passing DANB's Certified Dental Assistant (CDA) exam; or completing an ADA-accredited dental assisting course that teaches radiography.

Get the certificate or certification into the hire file before the first exposure.

A Licensed Dental Assistant (LDA) has a record to find.

A candidate qualifies by passing DANB's CDA exam plus either graduating from an accredited dental assisting program or earning 1,500 hours of dental assisting experience in the past five years — so the LDA license is what you verify.

Where a candidate points to the DANB exam, DANB's own Verify Credentials tool confirms whether a person holds DANB credentials such as the CDA.

Expanded functions are added to the license.

Nebraska LDAs can add expanded scope functions after completing an educational course for each: impressions for fixed prosthodontics, impressions and minor adjustments for removable prostheses, cementing prefabricated fixed prostheses on primary teeth, and monitoring and administering nitrous oxide.

The Expanded Function Restorative permits above apply to LDAs too.

Match each function to the duties you are assigning and confirm the person holds it — never assume the base license covers it.

How an assistant earns each credential is on our dental assistant requirements in Nebraska page.

The license search is not the whole discipline picture.

DHHS publishes disciplinary actions against licensed professionals on a separate page from the LIS search — check it for every finalist rather than relying on the license record alone.

Board discipline also follows a dentist nationally: 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 or reprimands a dentist, places them on probation, or accepts a license surrender — and NPDB rules count a state Board of Dentistry among its reporters.

Any practitioner can also run a self-query and share the result with you; our NPDB queries guide covers the routes.

Other states, other lookups: licenses are issued and verified state by state — this research found no national lookup covering every state — so verify an out-of-state credential with the board that issued it.

And a clean license is not the only screen: OIG advises health care entities to routinely check its exclusion list so that new hires and current employees are not on it; our OIG exclusion checks guide explains when that matters.

Save what you checked and when: a dated copy of each LIS result, the $25.00 written certification wherever the decision turned on expiration dates or discipline, and the assistant paperwork — radiography course completion and DANB certification.

Put it in the hire file before day one.

Set your re-checks around the renewal cycle: Nebraska dental licenses renew March 1 of odd-numbered years, so a screenshot filed before a renewal tells you nothing about the current cycle.

Re-run the lookups after each renewal, and whenever someone takes on a new permit or expanded function.

Once the checks clear and you move toward an offer, the contract is the next Nebraska-specific question — our guide to non-competes in Nebraska covers what holds up there.