Prosthodontist Job Description Template

Lead with the case mix.

Prosthodontics is the specialty the ADA's National Commission defines around the diagnosis, treatment planning, rehabilitation and maintenance of oral function, comfort, appearance and health for patients with missing or deficient teeth and oral and maxillofacial tissues, using biocompatible substitutes — and the federal occupational classification describes the work as diagnosing, treating, rehabilitating, designing and fitting prostheses that maintain oral function, health and appearance.

In a posting that becomes a concrete list: full-mouth rehabilitation, implant-supported fixed and removable prostheses, complete dentures and overdentures, complex removable partial dentures, and whatever digital full-arch or maxillofacial work your practice actually handles.

A generic line about complex restorative cases tells a specialist nothing; the real case list lets a prosthodontist judge the chair time in one read.

Name the lab arrangement early.

Designing, fitting and maintaining prostheses is the work itself in this specialty — the federal occupational definition has the prosthodontist designing and fitting prostheses, and the specialty definition runs through rehabilitation and maintenance — so the lab arrangement around that work shapes the job day to day.

Say whether you run an in-house lab, a named partner lab or a fully digital scan-and-design workflow, and who does the lab running.

Be precise on the credential, because this is where a general-dentist template does the most damage.

Write the requirement as: a licensed dentist who has completed an advanced education program in prosthodontics accredited by CODA or CDAC.

That accredited-program bar is the one the American Board of Prosthodontics applies to its certification candidates — they may apply once they have completed such a program or entered its third year — and each specialist status the National Commission defines sits on a completed residency.

Prosthodontics is one of the 12 dental specialties the National Commission recognizes, and the American Board of Prosthodontics is one of its 11 recognized certifying boards.

If you want the training path in full before you frame the role, our prosthodontist career guide covers it from the doctor's side.

Handle board certification deliberately, because it is voluntary.

The National Commission's vocabulary maps cleanly onto a posting: a board-certified specialist has completed dental school and the residency, passed the certification exam, and keeps up continuing education to stay certified; a board-eligible specialist has finished the residency and is eligible to sit the exam; an educationally qualified specialist has the residency and an active state license without certification.

Requiring the board in your posting filters down to certified doctors only — write it only if that is a filter you actually intend.

Quote a pay range, and anchor it on the current federal series: BLS's May 2025 occupational employment and wage statistics for offices of dentists counted 790 prosthodontists, with a median annual wage of $311,220, a mean of $273,980, and a middle half earning between $266,880 and $333,480.

BLS flags that employment estimate with a 30.8% relative standard error — the sample is small — so treat the band as a planning range rather than a market guarantee.

Two cautions before you set your own number: the ADA's last publishable median net income for private-practice prosthodontists is $195,000, from 2018, with every year from 2019 to 2025 suppressed for too few responses — and it measures net income in private practice, not an employed salary.

And no tier-1 or tier-2 source publishes typical collections percentages, daily minimums or lab-fee splits for prosthodontists, so any split you quote is one you and the candidate negotiate, not an industry figure.

Know the market you are hiring into: this is a small, small-practice specialty.

ADA HPI counted 3,568 professionally active prosthodontists in 2025 (HPI asks that its 2023–2025 supply figures be read with caution, following a data-maintenance change), and in 2024, 32.7% practiced solo, 11.1% were affiliated with a dental support organization against 16.1% of all dentists, and 4.9% were in groups with 100+ locations.

Nearly a third practiced solo and DSO affiliation ran below the all-dentist average — describe the referral base honestly and let the case mix sell the role.

Give the schedule in the numbers you actually run — clinical days, hours, operatories, how long your rehabilitation and full-arch appointment blocks run, and whether the role spans locations — and state the support that comes with the chair: chairside assistance, a treatment coordinator, and who manages the lab pipeline.

Then list the benefits you actually offer, close with an equal-opportunity line, and say plainly how to apply.

The license line is where your state edits the template.

Licensure is state law — in Connecticut, for example, no one may practice dentistry or dental medicine without a license from the Department of Public Health (Connecticut General Statutes § 20-106) — so the [STATE] in the template is doing real work.

Check the wording your own board uses before you post.

Check too whether your state carries a distinct specialty credential, because the three state examples below each do, and it belongs in the requirements when yours issues one.

The New Jersey State Board of Dentistry issues permits including ADA-recognized specialty permits; Illinois licenses a Specialty in Dentistry category through its Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, alongside its dentist, sedation-permit and controlled-substance licenses; and Mississippi's board licensee search filters for a Dental - Specialty license type.

If your state issues one, name it in the posting — and verify it in the licensee search rather than taking a CV line at its word.

If the doctor will handle controlled substances, the DEA reality goes on your checklist even though it never goes in the posting: federal regulation requires a separate registration for each principal place of business or professional practice where controlled substances are dispensed (21 CFR 1301.12(a)); a practitioner with offices in more than one state must hold a separate registration in each, after first obtaining that state's authority to handle controlled substances; and a registration based on one state's license cannot authorize dispensing in another state.

Finally, keep the finished description on file after you post it.

Under the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, a written job description prepared before advertising or interviewing applicants is considered evidence of the job's essential functions, and the employer's judgment about which functions are essential carries weight.

The duties list is doing two jobs — recruiting and documentation — so write it to match what the doctor will actually do.

Verify before the first shift, not after: confirm the dental license, and any specialty license or permit, in your state board's licensee search, and confirm residency completion with the program.

Nevada puts a version of the duty in writing: under NAC 631.230(1)(p), it is unprofessional conduct for a dentist who owns a practice to fail to verify the license of a dentist, dental therapist, dental hygienist or expanded function dental assistant before offering employment or an independent-contractor contract.

Keep the verification record either way.

Then get your referral numbers straight, because that is the first substantive question a specialist candidate asks: how many practices refer to you, how consistently, and what is already on the schedule.

If you are still deciding how the role should be built, our guide to how to hire a prosthodontist covers the full process, and writing a dental job ad covers the craft that applies to any posting, this one included.