Hiring an Oral & Maxillofacial Surgeon

An oral and maxillofacial surgeon is a dentist who completed a surgical residency of at least four years beyond dental school — the CODA accreditation minimum, not a typical program length, and some tracks run longer with an integrated medical degree.

That residency, not a specific certificate, is the credential that makes someone an OMS; see how to become an oral & maxillofacial surgeon and the residency itself for the training path in full, rather than this page restating it.

Most OMS work is referral-driven — general dentists send cases rather than the practice filling its own recall column — so the honest first question is whether your referral relationships can support the case volume a second surgeon needs, not just whether you can afford the pay. Which dental specialty pays the most covers where OMS sits against the other specialty SOC codes if that's part of the decision.

Beyond the residency, the practical differentiators are the ones your case mix will feel: comfort with the caseload you actually send out (dentoalveolar and implants versus orthognathic and trauma), whether the role needs hospital operating-room privileges, and what level of in-office anesthesia or deep-sedation permit it needs.

The last two are not settled by the residency alone — see credential verification below.

Verify the state dental licence directly with the state dental board, by name and licence number, before the first case.

There is no national licence, and licensure by credential or reciprocity between states is not automatic — see state licensure and reciprocity if you're hiring across a state line.

ABOMS board certification is a real credential — a Diplomate has passed a Qualifying Examination and an Oral Certifying Examination, with a fixed three-year window between the two — but it is voluntary and not a licensure requirement.

A fully licensed, practising OMS may never have pursued Diplomate status.

Ask about it and treat it as a distinction; do not write it into a posting as required unless you genuinely intend to exclude everyone who hasn't pursued it. ABOMS board certification for oral surgeons covers the process in full.

If the role needs hospital operating-room access, that privilege is granted by the hospital's own credentialing committee — a separate review from the state licence, and one that can take months.

Don't assume a candidate's prior case experience means privileging at your affiliated hospital is automatic; confirm directly with the hospital's medical staff office and build the timeline into your start date.

If the role needs in-office deep sedation or general anesthesia, confirm what permit level your state dental board requires beyond the base licence, and which permit the candidate currently holds and where it was issued — permits, like the licence itself, are typically not transferable between states without separate action.

Check directly with your board rather than assuming a permit held elsewhere carries over.

The national median is $352,220, with the middle 50% between $204,610 and $428,710 (BLS OEWS, SOC 29-1022, May 2025).

Read that band carefully: most OMS own or partner in a practice, so published wage figures blend clinical pay with practice profit, and an employed-associate offer typically sits toward the lower part of the range rather than at the median.

The band is also unusually wide even by dentistry's standards — the 10th percentile sits far below the 25th shown here, and the 90th climbs well above the 75th.

Ownership structure explains most of that spread, not geography alone.

Because most OMS work is referral-driven from general dentists rather than self-generated, an associate's ramp time depends heavily on how established your referring-GP relationships already are — a fact worth weighing alongside the pay number itself.

For a state-level anchor, the oral surgeon salary page lists every state with a published BLS estimate, though the sample there is thin because OMS is a small occupation nationally.

Say plainly whether the role is an employed associate position or has a stated partnership or buy-in path.

Most OMS eventually own or partner rather than associate indefinitely, so an offer with no stated path is competing against practice ownership, not just against other jobs.

State whether the role needs hospital operating-room privileges and, if so, at which hospital — and whether it needs an in-office anesthesia or deep-sedation permit beyond the base state licence.

Both are separate approvals from the dental licence, and naming them precisely tells a candidate you've actually checked rather than copied a generic surgeon template.

Describe where the caseload comes from — an established referring-GP base you're handing over, a shared caseload with an existing surgeon, or a market the associate is expected to help build.

That single fact tells a specialist candidate more than any line about culture.

Do not require ABOMS board certification unless you genuinely mean to filter on it; it's voluntary, and requiring it narrows the pool of practising OMS you'll see.

Confirm the state dental licence, and any anesthesia/sedation permit the role depends on, before day one — and keep the verification record.

If hospital privileges are part of the role, confirm the credentialing timeline separately; it can run longer than a typical notice period and is worth starting before an offer is even signed.

Because the caseload is largely referral-driven, introduce a new surgeon to your referring general dentists deliberately and early rather than leaving the relationship to build itself — an associate left to inherit referral relationships passively will take longer to reach full caseload.

Be explicit about how complex or surgical cases are triaged if more than one surgeon shares a referral stream, and who covers hospital call duties if the role includes them.

Ambiguity on either is expensive once two surgeons are drawing from the same referral base.