Utah Dentist and Dental Hygienist Licensing Board, Division of Professional Licensing (DOPL), Utah Department of Commerce

Utah dentist CE requirements

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

What the board requires

• 30 hrsTotal per biennial cycle.
• 2 hrsControlled substance prescribing CE (dentists who prescribe or hold a controlled substance license only), counted within the total.
• Up to 15 hrsOnline or home study CE with an examination and completion certificate.
• Up to 10 hrsTeaching CE relevant to dentistry and dental hygiene.
• RequiredCurrent CPR-BLS, ACLS, or PALS certification required to renew; recertification hours do NOT count toward the 30 CE hours (does not count toward CE hours).

Common questions

Source: Utah Dentist and Dental Hygienist Licensing Board, Division of Professional Licensing (DOPL), Utah Department of Commerce (https://dopl.utah.gov/dentistry/). RECONCILIATION SUMMARY (US-UT dentist CE hours requirement; not verified, hours requirement only). (a) FULL AGREEMENT. Both blind extractors agree on the entire numeric spine: biennial 24-month cycle; 30 total qualified CE hours per period under Utah Admin. Code R156-69-304a; one mandated subject topic (controlled substance prescribing, 2 hours for dentists, counted within the 30); teaching format cap of 10 hours; online or home-study-with-examination cap of 15 hours; empty excludedFormats; provider acceptance of state_approved plus ADA CERP / AGD PACE with strict=false; no carryover (maxHours 0); and current CPR-BLS / ACLS / PALS as a required non-counting renewal credential. Utah mandates NO general subject topics (no infection control, ethics, jurisprudence, medical emergencies, child abuse, human trafficking, implicit bias, or radiography requirement). (b) WITHIN vs ADDITIVE RESOLVED to within. Extractor B flagged this as ambiguous, but Extractor A supplied the controlling statutory language from Utah Code 58-37-6.5: the 2 controlled-substance hours "does not increase the total number of state-required continuing professional education hours." That settles it - the 2 hours are a subset (floor) inside the 30, not on top. The subject was mapped to opioid_pain as the closest controlled-vocabulary fit; no exact slug for "controlled substance prescribing" exists. (c) WHY FLAGGED (flagged_ambiguous). The R156-69-304a rule text is sourced ONLY to the Cornell LII secondary mirror (law.cornell.edu). Both extractors independently reported that the official Utah sources (adminrules.utah.gov, rules.utah.gov) returned 403 / 404 / redirect / binary PDF and could not be fetched, so no live primary confirmation of the rule text exists. That mirror-only condition alone precludes extracted_agree. There is also a board-URL disagreement and a minor format-mapping disagreement (see flags). Cannot be verified_live - a human operator must confirm before go-live. (d) EXTRACTION FLAGS (human reviewer must check): - SOURCE (primary): All R156-69-304a quotes are mirror-only (Cornell LII). Confirm verbatim against official adminrules.utah.gov R156-69-304a before go-live. The controlled-substance topic quote is from a primary official-code URL (le.utah.gov, 58-37-6.5), though one extractor noted direct fetch was blocked and the figure came via search extraction; corroborate. - BOARD URL: Extractor A used https://commerce.utah.gov/dopl/dentistry/renew-a-license/ ; Extractor B used https://dopl.utah.gov/dentistry/ . Adopted dopl.utah.gov (DOPL now operates its own domain). Verify the live renewal page. - FORMAT CAP mapping: Extractor A folded self_instruction into the 15-hour online/home-study cap; Extractor B limited that cap to online_selfstudy + correspondence. Adopted B's narrower mapping because the rule text requires "an examination," which self_instruction does not imply. Reviewer should confirm whether self-instruction without an exam is separately capped, excluded, or uncapped. - UNMAPPED CONTENT/SOURCE CAPS: The rule reportedly also caps practice/office-management CE at 3 hours, DOPL/Division-sponsored CE at 6 hours (per A), and volunteer direct-patient-care service at about 15 percent of the requirement (roughly 4.5 hours; 4 volunteer hours = 1 CE hour). These are content or source caps, not one of the 7 delivery-format codes, so they are intentionally NOT in formatCaps. Reviewer should confirm and decide handling. - SEDATION: Permit-specific didactic hours (about 2 minimal / 4 moderate / 8 deep) apply ONLY to holders of the corresponding sedation/anesthesia permit and are omitted from this general-license spine. - CONTROLLED-SUBSTANCE APPLICABILITY: The 2-hour requirement (58-37-6.5) applies only to dentists who prescribe or hold a controlled substance license, not to every general licensee. Non-prescribers are not subject to it. - This is an hours requirement only, not independently verified and not guaranteed complete. These are the published requirements as we read them, not legal or board advice, and CEChart does not certify compliance. Confirm your requirements with Utah Dentist and Dental Hygienist Licensing Board, Division of Professional Licensing (DOPL), Utah Department of Commerce before you rely on them.