Orofacial Pain Specialist Job Description Template

Start the duties list from what the specialty actually is.

Orofacial pain is one of the 12 dental specialties the ADA's National Commission currently recognizes, and the National Commission defines it as the specialty covering the diagnosis, management and treatment of pain disorders of the jaw, mouth, face, head and neck — a definition adopted in September 2020.

A posting that says only "TMD experience preferred" tells a specialist nothing about your caseload.

Name the conditions you actually see — [TEMPOROMANDIBULAR DISORDERS / CHRONIC FACIAL PAIN / HEADACHES / YOUR MIX] — and what you expect managed in-house versus co-managed.

Say where the patients come from, too: referring general dentists, physician referrals or self-referred patients.

Write the requirements line in two parts.

First, an active [STATE] dental license — to take one example of how the rule is written, Connecticut provides that no person may practice dentistry or dental medicine without a license from the Department of Public Health.

Second, completion of an accredited orofacial pain residency: CODA's accreditation standards set the program minimum at two consecutive academic years, at least 24 months full-time or the equivalent.

Then ask your state dental board whether it issues a separate credential for this work and name it exactly as the board does — the section after the template shows how much the vocabulary differs from state to state.

Be precise about board certification.

The American Board of Orofacial Pain — one of the 11 certifying boards on the National Commission's recognized list, and recognized in 2022 as the specialty's only national certifying board — runs a voluntary certification.

Its exam candidates must be enrolled in or have graduated from a CODA-approved full-time orofacial pain residency, and must pass written and oral examinations.

A board-certified specialist has completed dental school and the residency, passed the board exam and maintains the certification with continuing education; a board-eligible one has the schooling and residency done but has not yet passed; and the National Commission's term "educationally qualified" describes a specialist who has completed the education and holds a state license, without certification.

List certification as a requirement only if you intend to filter on it — in a specialty this small, a hard filter cuts deep.

Quote a pay range with its source behind it.

Our sources carry no BLS wage series titled for orofacial pain; the nearest federal category is "Dentists, All Other Specialists," which covers all dentists not listed separately, with endodontist, oral pathologist and periodontist given as illustrative examples.

In the May 2025 offices-of-dentists data that group counted 2,570 workers with a median annual wage of $224,990, a mean of $285,250, and a middle 50% running from $159,530 to $389,520.

The category is broad and the specialty is small — ADA HPI counted 96 dentists in orofacial pain among professionally active U.S. dentists in 2025, up from 25 in 2021 (HPI counts a dentist in several areas if they hold several specialty certificates, and says its 2023-2025 data should be read with caution) — so treat those figures as directional context, not as your market rate.

Post a real range from your own budget and say the structure.

Leave billing claims out of the posting: how this care bills is a detail to settle with your billing team first, not a line to promise in an ad.

Spell out the schedule.

Days per week, hours, whether the specialist sees patients at one location or several, and the support around them: assistant time, scheduling for longer evaluations, and who handles records and correspondence for co-managed patients.

Put your real appointment lengths and template in rather than leaving them to be guessed.

List benefits and close with an EEO line.

CE allowance and license or permit renewal fees, malpractice coverage and who carries it, health coverage, PTO, retirement, and any path the role leads to.

For everything a posting cannot carry — screening, comp structure, verifying the credential — our guide to how to hire an orofacial pain specialist picks up where the template ends.

Match the requirements line to your state, not to a template.

The dental license is the baseline — Connecticut, for instance, provides that no person shall engage in the practice of dentistry or dental medicine without a license from the Department of Public Health (Connecticut General Statutes § 20-106) — but what a specialty credential on top of the license is called differs state by state.

Ask your board what it issues before you write the line.

The vocabulary varies enough to matter.

The New Jersey State Board of Dentistry issues specialty permits in the dental fields the ADA recognizes, alongside enteral sedation, parenteral conscious sedation, general anesthesia and local anesthesia permits.

In Illinois, licenses are issued by the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, whose dental professions page lists a Specialty in Dentistry license and a separate Dental Sedation Permit.

Mississippi's licensee search filters for a Dental - Specialty credential type.

Name the credential your state actually issues — a requirement written in another state's vocabulary filters out exactly the candidates you want.

If controlled substances are part of the role, DEA adds a federal layer.

A separate registration is required for each principal place of business where controlled substances are dispensed.

A practitioner practicing in more than one state needs a separate registration in each, and must first obtain state authority to handle controlled substances in each state where they have an office — and a registration based on one state's license cannot authorize dispensing in another.

If the role covers several offices, the schedule line in your posting and the registration picture need to match.

The training line is not a state-board credential.

An accredited orofacial pain residency is a defined credential — CODA's standards require at least two consecutive academic years, a minimum of 24 months full-time or the equivalent — and the American Board of Orofacial Pain requires its exam candidates to be enrolled in or have graduated from a CODA-approved full-time orofacial pain residency.

Write "completion of an accredited orofacial pain residency" and verify it against the program; do not substitute a general-dentistry CE list for it.

Verify before the first day, then keep the file.

Confirm the dental license with your state board, confirm the residency and any claimed board certification directly with the program and the American Board of Orofacial Pain, and confirm a DEA registration that covers this location if controlled substances will be dispensed here.

If the role covers more than one office, check the registrations match the locations.

Keep the description you posted.

Under the Americans with Disabilities Act's essential-functions framework, a written job description prepared before advertising or interviewing applicants is considered evidence of the job's essential functions — one more reason the duties list should say precisely what the role does, and nothing it does not.

Post it where the mechanics are already handled.

This page is the role template; our guide to writing a dental job ad covers the wording and structure that apply to any posting, so you only write those once.