Montana Board of Dentistry (Department of Labor and Industry, Business Standards Division)

Montana dentist CE requirements

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

What the board requires

• 60 hrsTotal per triennial cycle.
• RequiredCurrent CPR, ACLS, or PALS card must be maintained at all times; internet courses accepted only if a hands-on evaluation of clinical competency is included. Does not count toward CE hours. (does not count toward CE hours).

Common questions

Source: Montana Board of Dentistry (Department of Labor and Industry, Business Standards Division) (https://boards.bsd.dli.mt.gov/dentistry/). RECONCILIATION SUMMARY (US-MT dentist CE, hours requirement only; not a verified or complete legal determination). (a) WHAT FULLY AGREES: Extractor A and Extractor B agree on the entire numeric spine with zero substantive conflict. Both report: a fixed three-year (triennial, 36-month) CE cycle keyed to a 2015 start date; 60 total CE hours for a general dentist, completed prior to renewal; no mandated subject topics (topics empty); no format caps and no excluded formats (empty); provider not strict, with state_approved, ADA CERP, and PACE all accepted but none mandated (board does not preapprove programs or sponsors); zero carryover of excess hours (maxHours 0); and a non-counting mandatory current CPR, ACLS, or PALS card in requiredCredentials. Governing rule cited by both is ARM 24.138.2110 (Continuing Education), the adopted rule that replaced the older repealed ARM 24.138.2101 through 24.138.2106. All agreed values were adopted as-is. (b) WITHIN vs ADDITIVE RESOLUTION: No mandatory subject topic exists for a general dentist license, so no within/additive determination was needed for topics (topics is empty). There is ONE conditional anesthesia carve-out that both extractors deliberately left out of topics: a dentist who ALSO holds a separate anesthesia/sedation permit must obtain, as part of the 60 hours, 20 hours of anesthesia-specific CE (deep sedation/general anesthesia permit) OR 12 hours (moderate sedation permit). Board wording per the ADA compilation: "If a dentist also holds an anesthesia permit, the dentist must obtain as part of the 60 hours the following anesthesia-specific education: (i) 20 hours for deep sedation/general anesthesia; or (ii) 12 hours for moderate sedation." The phrase "as part of the 60 hours" makes this WITHIN, not additive. It is NOT modeled as a topic because it is triggered solely by holding a separate permit and does not apply to a plain general dentist license. If a reviewer later chooses to model it, it maps to the controlled-vocabulary slug sedation_anesthesia, counting = within, flagged as permit-conditional. (c) WHY FLAGGED (flagged_ambiguous): The full spine agrees, but the source is NOT a live primary board or official-code URL. Both extractors independently found that the primary Montana Secretary of State rule display (rules.mt.gov, RuleNo 24.138.2110) is a JavaScript-rendered single-page app that returns only an empty shell when fetched headless, and the Cornell LII mirror does not carry this renumbered Title 24 rule. The entire extraction therefore rests on the ADA "Montana Laws and Rules" compilation (a secondary official summary that reproduces the rule verbatim), corroborated for A against the board's own MAR Notice 24-138-83 rulemaking PDF (NEW RULE II). Per the decision rules, a spine sourced only to a secondary/mirror source cannot be "extracted_agree"; it must be flagged_ambiguous. Never verified_live: a human operator must sign off before go-live. (d) EXTRACTION FLAGS (human reviewer must check each): 1. PRIMARY SOURCE NOT CAPTURED VERBATIM. No live .gov rule text was read. Spine rests on the ADA compilation of ARM 24.138.2110 plus (for A) the board rulemaking PDF. Confirm the 60-hour figure and full rule text against the live rules.mt.gov display (render JS) before go-live. 2. ADA COMPILATION VERSION MISMATCH. A cited the ADA summary "updated 24 October 2025"; B cited the same URL "updated 7 July 2026". Same source, different snapshot dates; both quote identical rule text. The more recent (7 July 2026) snapshot was adopted for authority strings. Verify the current live ADA summary still matches. 3. ANNUAL RENEWAL vs TRIENNIAL CE CYCLE. Montana licenses renew annually (typically by March 1), but the 60-hour CE total is measured over the fixed three-year cycle. This doc models the CE cycle as triennial/36 months. Confirm the renewal-cadence vs CE-cycle distinction is handled correctly downstream. 4. ANESTHESIA PERMIT CARVE-OUT NOT MODELED AS A TOPIC. 20 hours (deep sedation/general anesthesia) or 12 hours (moderate sedation), within the 60, apply ONLY to permit holders. Intentionally omitted from topics as permit-conditional. Confirm this treatment is acceptable, or model as sedation_anesthesia / within / conditional. 5. CARRYOVER EDGE CASES. maxHours 0. Note additional rule nuances both extractors surfaced: hours used to cure a delinquent cycle cannot be reused for the next reporting period; CE required by disciplinary order does not count toward the requirement; CE does not apply until the licensee's first full year of licensure; a one-time credit is available for first-time preparation and teaching of a qualifying program. None of these create positive carryover, but verify if the schema needs to capture the one-time teaching credit. 6. HOME STUDY / FORMAT. Secondary summaries (board and third-party such as NetCE, DentalCENetwork) state all 60 hours may be completed by home study, consistent with the rule imposing no self-study or online ceiling. formatCaps and excludedFormats left empty on that basis; confirm no cap exists in the live rule. These are the published requirements as we read them, not legal or board advice, and CEChart does not certify compliance. Confirm your requirements with Montana Board of Dentistry (Department of Labor and Industry, Business Standards Division) before you rely on them.