Oral Radiologist Job Description Template
Copy it, edit the bracketed parts, and confirm the license line with your state board before you post.
An oral radiologist job description has to answer four questions a general-dentist template doesn't have to: what the person reads all day (CBCT and panoramic studies, and the reports that go back to referrers), where the cases come from, which license applies in your state and whether it also requires a separate specialty credential, and whether the reading happens on-site or remotely.
Below is a copy-ready template, the state lines that change it, and the pay benchmark to set your number against.
At a glance
middle 50% of BLS's all-other-dental-specialists category — not an oral-radiologist-only series
Benchmark pay band
$159,530–$389,520
board certification is voluntary — require it only if you mean to filter on it
Credential line to list
State license + residency
imaging center, referring practices, in-house CBCT, or remote reading
The line to put near the top
Case source + setting
What to include
Start with what the job actually is.
Oral and maxillofacial radiology is the specialty of dentistry concerned with producing and interpreting images and data from all modalities of radiant energy — one of the 12 dental specialties the ADA's National Commission currently recognizes.
"Takes x-rays" is a general-practice line; it undersells this role.
List the studies this hire will read — CBCT volumes, panoramics, cephalometrics, whatever your referral flow actually sends — and what comes back: a written report, to whom, on what turnaround.
Say where the cases come from and where the person sits while reading them.
Staffing an imaging center, reading in-house CBCT for a group practice, teaching residents alongside a faculty caseload, and reading studies transmitted by referring practices are all different jobs with different applicants.
State it plainly rather than leaving a specialist to infer the setting from between the lines.
The worker-side view of the specialty — the training path and what the work is like — is in our oral radiologist career guide.
Then get the license line right.
An active [STATE] dental license in good standing is the floor — in Connecticut, for instance, no one may practice dentistry without a license from the Department of Public Health.
Check whether your state also issues a separate specialty credential for this specialty: the Kansas Dental Board recognizes specialist certificates in branches including oral and maxillofacial radiology, separate from the general dental license; the New Jersey State Board of Dentistry issues ADA-recognized specialty permits; Illinois licenses a "Specialty in Dentistry" credential through IDFPR; and Mississippi's board licensee search treats "Dental - Specialty" as its own license type.
Which of those applies to your hire is a question for your state dental board — confirm the exact requirement before you write the line rather than copying another practice's posting.
Be precise about board certification — or leave it out.
It is voluntary.
Per the National Commission, a board-certified specialist has completed dental school and an advanced education residency, passed the certification exam, and keeps up continuing education to stay certified; board eligible means school plus residency with the exam not yet passed; educationally qualified means school plus residency plus a state license, without certification.
One more wrinkle: the Commission's list of recognized certifying boards — 11 of them — includes no oral and maxillofacial radiology board.
Write the requirement you actually mean, and do not add certification language to a posting as decoration.
Quote a real number.
The closest published benchmark is BLS's May 2025 wage data for offices of dentists, and it needs a caveat before you use it: the figures sit in the catch-all "Dentists, All Other Specialists" category (SOC 29-1029) — the bucket for dentists without a code of their own; the SOC names endodontist, oral pathologist and periodontist as its illustrative examples — so it is not an oral-radiologist-only series.
Within that pool: median $224,990, mean $285,250, 25th percentile $159,530, 75th $389,520, 90th $469,750, on 2,570 practitioners nationally in dental offices.
Use the band to sanity-check your offer, not as a market rate for the specialty.
Give the schedule shape and the tooling: days per week, hours, expected turnaround for routine and urgent reads, whether the person works on-site or remotely, and which systems they will work in — your PACS, your practice-management software, how images arrive from referrers.
In a reading-heavy role, throughput depends on that infrastructure as much as on the individual, so the answers belong in the posting.
Write the description before you advertise and keep the dated copy on file: under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a written description prepared before advertising or interviewing is considered evidence of the job's essential functions, and the employer's judgment about which functions are essential carries weight.
Close with an equal-opportunity statement.
The mechanics that are the same for any role — length, keywords, where candidates look — are covered in writing a dental job ad; the template below is the specialty-specific part.
The template
Paste this and replace the bracketed parts.
Put the case source and the reading setting near the top — they tell a specialist what the job actually is.
[PRACTICE OR IMAGING CENTER NAME] — Oral and Maxillofacial Radiologist ([FULL-TIME / PART-TIME], [DAYS] days/week) Compensation: [$X–$Y ANNUAL, OR YOUR STRUCTURE] Setting: [IMAGING CENTER / GROUP PRACTICE / DENTAL SCHOOL / HOSPITAL / REMOTE READING] Location: [CITY, STATE] About the role We are hiring an oral and maxillofacial radiologist to [DESCRIBE THE CASE FLOW — e.g. read in-house CBCT and panoramic studies for our [N]-location practice / staff our imaging center / provide reads for referring practices]. Expected volume: [STUDIES PER WEEK]. What you'd do - Interpret [CBCT / panoramic / cephalometric / OTHER] studies - Produce written reports and return findings to [REFERRING DENTISTS / ORDERING PROVIDERS] within [TURNAROUND] - Flag findings that need the treating dentist's urgent attention [OR YOUR PROTOCOL] - [IF APPLICABLE: read studies transmitted from referrers in other states] - [IF APPLICABLE: teach radiology to [RESIDENTS / STUDENTS / STAFF]] - Maintain reading records in [YOUR PACS / PMS] What we're looking for - DDS or DMD - Active [STATE] dental license, in good standing - [IF YOUR STATE ISSUES ONE: the state's specialty certificate or permit in oral and maxillofacial radiology — confirm the exact requirement with the state board] - Completion of an oral and maxillofacial radiology residency - [ONLY IF YOU MEAN IT: board certification — it is voluntary] - [YEARS] of experience preferred; new graduates [WELCOME / NOT CONSIDERED] What we offer - [COMPENSATION AS ABOVE] - [SCHEDULE: days, hours, on-call reading expectations, remote work if any] - [BENEFITS: health coverage, PTO, CE allowance, malpractice coverage, retirement] To apply: [HOW TO APPLY] [EMPLOYER NAME] is an equal opportunity employer.
The license line.
This is where a copied template does the most damage.
"DDS/DMD required" describes a general dentist; what distinguishes this hire is the specialty residency and, in states that issue one, the separate specialty credential — which is why the template asks you to confirm the line with your board instead of shipping a generic one.
The pool you are hiring from.
Set expectations for it before you post.
ADA HPI counted 225 dentists in oral and maxillofacial radiology among professionally active U.S. dentists in 2025, up from 177 in 2021 — and HPI counts a dentist certificated in more than one area in each of those areas, and flags its 2023–2025 supply figures for caution over data-maintenance changes.
A pool that size means the posting has to carry real information: case flow, setting, structure, number.
Remote reads across state lines.
If the role includes reading studies transmitted from referrers in other states, settle the licensure question before you finalize the wording.
Our research found no published rule answering whether a dentist reading CBCT scans remotely must hold a license in the patient's state — so put the question to the state boards involved or to your healthcare attorney, and write the posting around the answer you get rather than assuming one.
Controlled substances.
In a reading-only role these may not apply at all.
If yours will also treat patients or prescribe, the registration follows the location and the license: DEA requires a separate registration for each principal place of business or professional practice at one general physical location where controlled substances are dispensed (21 CFR 1301.12(a)), a practitioner practicing in more than one state must hold a separate DEA registration in each of them — with state authority obtained first — and a registration based on one state's license cannot authorize controlled-substance dispensing in another state.
What to quote.
The band above comes from the catch-all 29-1029 category, not an oral-radiology-only series, so set the number from the role itself — volume, turnaround commitment, on-call reading, teaching — say whether it is a guarantee, a base plus something else, or neither, and put it in the posting.
In a pool this small, give a specialist a real number and a plain structure.
After you post
Verify before the first read: the dental license with the state board, and the specialty certificate or permit too where your state issues one — keep dated copies of both with the hire's paperwork, next to the dated job description you wrote before advertising.
Expect the first serious questions to be about case flow, not pay: how many studies a week, from whom, on which systems, and what the turnaround commitment is.
Have those answers ready for the people who ask them.
The process around the posting — screening, verification, the offer — is on our how to hire an oral radiologist page.
Ready to post it?
Your oral and maxillofacial radiologist listing goes live on DentistryHires, and you can edit it any time after it is posted.