{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/dental-assistants/",
  "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology",
  "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.",
  "scored_at": "2026-08-11",
  "model": "claude-opus-5",
  "occupation": {
    "title": "Dental Assistants",
    "soc_code": "31-9091",
    "category": "Healthcare Support",
    "us_employment": 387790,
    "median_annual_wage": 48070
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 67,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": true,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 17,
    "embodiment": 19,
    "liability_shield": 10,
    "trust_premium": 13,
    "judgment_accountability": 8
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "17 rather than 20 because the scheduling, chart-note dictation, insurance pre-auth and supply reordering you do between patients are genuinely being absorbed by practice-management software, but four-handed chairside work — retracting a tongue that keeps moving, suctioning while the handpiece runs, mixing alginate before it sets, positioning a sensor on a gagging patient — has no automated substitute at any price.",
    "embodiment": "19 because there is no version of this job done off-site: you are standing at the chair with gloved hands inside another person's mouth, handling sharps, autoclaving instruments, taking impressions, and dealing with blood, saliva and aerosols under OSHA bloodborne-pathogen rules.",
    "liability_shield": "10 rather than 15 because most states do gate you — a radiography permit or state DA/EFDA certification to expose films or place and finish restorations — but the dentist of record signs the treatment plan and carries the malpractice policy, so your licence restricts who may hire you without making you the party sued.",
    "trust_premium": "13 because you are the person the patient talks to for the 40 minutes the dentist is not in the room — you explain post-op instructions, hold the hand of the kid getting a sealant, and remember which adult needs nitrous — and in small practices patients ask for you by name, though they are ultimately buying the dentist's dentistry.",
    "judgment_accountability": "8 because you follow the dentist's instruction and written protocols on materials, exposure settings and sterilization cycles, but you make real unsupervised calls: recognizing a vasovagal episode or an allergic reaction, flagging a blood-pressure or medication-history problem before the anesthetic goes in, and deciding a radiograph must be retaken."
  },
  "rationale": "The core of this job — suctioning and retracting inside a live patient's mouth, mixing and passing materials, taking intraoral radiographs, seating and calming anxious patients, sterilizing and setting up trays — is fine-motor work in a wet, moving, unpredictable cavity that no deployed robot handles. The automatable slice is the front-desk overlap: chart notes, insurance pre-authorizations, recall scheduling, and inventory ordering, which practice-management AI is already absorbing. Most states require a radiography permit or expanded-function certification to place restorations or take X-rays, which is a real if modest regulatory shield.",
  "outlook": "Employment keeps growing with dental demand through the 2030s; AI trims the paperwork half of the job and reads the X-rays you take, so the assistants who hold expanded-function and imaging credentials capture the hours while pure front-desk-plus-tray-setup roles thin out.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Expansion of state Expanded Function Dental Assistant (EFDA) licensure with mandatory certification and direct personal accountability — e.g. more states following Ohio, Minnesota and Kansas in letting certified assistants place and finish restorations under defined supervision, plus Dental Assisting National Board (DANB) certification being written into state practice acts as a condition of employment rather than a voluntary credential. Also state radiation-control rules tightening the radiography permit (individual permit-holder named on each intraoral image) as AI caries-detection software (e.g. Pearl, Overjet, both FDA-cleared) enters the diagnostic chain and boards decide a permitted human must be the one who acquires and attests to the image.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: if practice-management AI absorbs the front-desk slice (pre-auth, recall calls, insurance coding, inventory), the residual role is entirely chairside — four-handed dentistry, EFDA restorative placement, patient management of pediatric and anxious patients. This occupation genuinely has two tiers and the clerical tier is the one being eaten first.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 2
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "EFDA scope growth moves real calls onto the assistant: matrix and margin adequacy, when to stop and call the dentist mid-procedure, triaging a patient whose vitals or medication history contraindicate treatment. If state acts formalize assistant-initiated medical-history screening or pre-sedation vitals checks as the assistant's documented responsibility, ambiguity-ownership rises.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 3
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "Trust premium has no plausible route: patients pay for the dentist, not the assistant, and rarely choose a practice on assistant identity. Wage pressure, not displacement, is the realistic risk — a chairside-only role with the clerical tier stripped out is harder to automate but also easier to schedule part-time and staff at lower cost."
  },
  "adjudication": {
    "method": "two independent runs agreed on the verdict",
    "outcome": "corroborated",
    "run_totals": [
      67,
      67
    ],
    "run_verdicts": [
      "SAFE",
      "SAFE"
    ]
  },
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2017,
        "emp": 337160,
        "wage": 37630
      },
      {
        "y": 2018,
        "emp": 341060,
        "wage": 38660
      },
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 351470,
        "wage": 40080
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 312140,
        "wage": 41180
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 347170,
        "wage": 38660
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 363880,
        "wage": 44820
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 370690,
        "wage": 46540
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 375430,
        "wage": 47300
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 387790,
        "wage": 48070
      }
    ],
    "from": 2017,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": 15,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": true
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}