Mississippi State Board of Dental Examiners

Mississippi dentist CE requirements

The published continuing-education requirements for a Mississippi dental license, laid out clearly so you can see the whole picture before your renewal.

What the board requires

• 40 hrsTotal per biennial cycle.
• 3 hrsOpioid / controlled-substance prescribing CE (required only for dentists who prescribe, administer, or dispense a controlled substance, or propose to), counted within the total.
• RequiredCurrent CPR certification required for active licensure (Board Regulation No. 45). Up to 8 CPR hours (or up to 16 ACLS, up to 16 PALS) MAY optionally count toward the 40-hour total, but CPR is a mandatory credential, not a mandated subject topic. (does not count toward CE hours).

Common questions

Source: Mississippi State Board of Dental Examiners (https://www.dentalboard.ms.gov/). RECONCILIATION SUMMARY (US-MS dentist, hours requirement extraction; not verified or certified complete). (a) WHAT FULLY AGREES: Extractor A and Extractor B independently produced an identical numeric spine, and I adopt each agreed value. Cycle = 24 months, biennial (for dentists the period runs Jan 1 of an even year through Dec 31 of the following odd year). Total = 40 hours of Board-approved CDE per biennial period. One conditional subject topic: 3 hours of opioid-prescribing CE. formatCaps = empty and excludedFormats = empty. Provider policy = strict, accepting state_approved (Board / listed Mississippi organizations such as MDA, MDS, NDA, NDHA, MDHA, ADHA, AADB, MS State Board of Medical Licensure, or Board-approved course-by-course), CERP (mapped from ADA), and PACE (mapped from AGD). Carryover = 0 (no roll-over provision in the current rule). CPR = required credential under Board Regulation 45, not a CE subject topic. Both extractors cite the same primary source: the board's own Reg 41 PDF (dentalboard.ms.gov, file labeled Updated 11-14-2024, last amended October 27, 2023), cross-checked against the Cornell LII codified mirror of 30 Miss. Code R. 2301-1.41. (b) WITHIN vs ADDITIVE RESOLUTION: The 3-hour opioid topic is recorded as counting = within (a subset floor inside the 40, not on top of it). The current 2023 board text does NOT state the hours are additive. Board wording: "Licensed dentists who prescribe, administer, or dispense any controlled substance within the State of Mississippi, or who proposes to do so, must complete (3) hours of Board-approved CDE per biennial renewal period regarding the prescribing of opioids." Because the rule never says these 3 hours are on top of the 40, and because the superseded 2019 version classified opioid CE as clinical continuing education (a subset of the total), within is the defensible reading. This is an INFERENCE, not an explicit statement, so it is flagged below. (c) WHY FLAGGED (flagged_ambiguous, not extracted_agree): Two independent blockers prevent extracted_agree even though the full spine agrees. FIRST, the opioid within/additive counting is inferred from silence in the rule, not stated. SECOND, the source has a stale-version hazard: the same official board site hosts TWO conflicting Reg 41 files. The older superseded version (amended Sept. 16, 2019, still posted as "REG 41 RULE TEXT FINAL.pdf" and still echoed by third-party vendors like Elite Learning and NetCE, and reportedly by the board's own CE FAQ) required a 20-hour clinical CE minimum and capped computer/video/audio/reading/correspondence/home-study courses at 25 percent. The current Oct. 27, 2023 amendment REMOVED both the 20-hour clinical floor and the 25 percent self-study cap; current Section 3 (Method of Delivery) imposes no percentage cap and no clinical floor, requiring only a post-study examination for any non-in-person CDE. That is why formatCaps and excludedFormats are correctly empty here. A reconciler working from a stale source would wrongly add a self-study cap or a clinical-hours floor; the in-force rule has neither. Also note every citation is verified:false and retrievedAt 2026-07-18; no field was live-confirmed by a human operator, so verified_live is not permitted. (d) EXTRACTION FLAGS (a human reviewer MUST check each): 1. OPIOID COUNTING (within vs additive): Marked within by inference only. The 2023 rule does not explicitly state whether the 3 opioid hours count inside or on top of the 40. Confirm against current Section 2. 2. OPIOID TRIGGER: Topic is CONDITIONAL, applying only to dentists who prescribe, administer, or dispense (or propose to) a controlled substance, not to every general dentist. Confirm the trigger scope. 3. STALE-VERSION HAZARD: Two conflicting Reg 41 PDFs live on the same official board site (2019 superseded vs 2023 current). Confirm the 40-hour, no-cap, no-clinical-floor spine is drawn from the Oct. 27, 2023 amendment and not the 2019 file. Many third-party vendors and possibly the board FAQ still describe the old 20-hour clinical minimum and 25 percent self-study cap. 4. SOURCE STATUS: Primary board PDF plus LII mirror agree, but nothing is verified:false to live-confirmed. Operator should open the board PDF URL and confirm it currently resolves to the 2023 amendment text. 5. SUBJECT VOCAB MAPPING: Opioid topic mapped to controlled-vocabulary subject "opioid_pain" (best fit). Provider organizations mapped: ADA -> CERP, AGD -> PACE, Board/listed MS orgs -> state_approved. 6. OUT-OF-SCOPE ITEMS (not in the 40-hour CDE total, so intentionally omitted as topics): radiologic-safety CE (governed by Miss. Code Ann. 41-58 and Board Regulation 25, separate authority); jurisprudence exam (required only for inactive-to-active or reinstatement, not ordinary renewal). Not mandated for routine renewal: infection control, ethics, medical emergencies, child abuse, human trafficking, implicit bias, cultural competency. 7. EXEMPTIONS to confirm: first biennial renewal period, full-time postgraduate specialty trainees, and periods a license was inactive. These are the published requirements as we read them, not legal or board advice, and CEChart does not certify compliance. Confirm your requirements with Mississippi State Board of Dental Examiners before you rely on them.