Jobs / Healthcare / 31-9091.00
Dental Assistants
Perform limited clinical duties under the direction of a dentist. Clinical duties may include equipment preparation and sterilization, preparing patients for treatment, assisting the dentist during treatment, and providing patients with instructions for oral healthcare procedures. May perform administrative duties such as scheduling appointments, maintaining medical records, billing, and coding information for insurance purposes.
- US jobs
- 387,790
- Median wage
- $48,070 a year
- Job family
- Healthcare
Can agents do the work of dental assistants?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Healthcare:
- Task levelPartialOne benchmark, from early 2025. On Stanford's MedAgentBench, where agents do clinical tasks in a simulated electronic health record, the best recorded model completes 69.7% of tasks (Claude 3.5 Sonnet v2). It has no maintained leaderboard, so newer models are not measured. No benchmark in our collection tests work with patients.
- Project levelPartialOnly adjacent evidence. GDPval includes nurses among its 44 occupations. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all occupations. No benchmark in our collection tests clinical work over days, such as managing a patient's care.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in healthcare, not always this occupation's tasks.
- 1846 EloClaude Opus 5.5 (Adaptive Reasoning, Max Effort, Default Fallback) · 23 Sep 2026Unrated
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Prepare patient, sterilize or disinfect instruments, set up instrument trays, prepare materials, or assist dentist during dental procedures.
- Record treatment information in patient records.
- Assist dentist in management of medical or dental emergencies.
- Order and monitor dental supplies and equipment inventory.
- Expose dental diagnostic x-rays.
- Provide postoperative instructions prescribed by dentist.
- Instruct patients in oral hygiene and plaque control programs.
- Take and record medical and dental histories and vital signs of patients.
- Apply protective coating of fluoride to teeth.
- Schedule appointments, prepare bills and receive payment for dental services, complete insurance forms, and maintain records, manually or using computer.
- Make preliminary impressions for study casts and occlusal registrations for mounting study casts.
- Pour, trim, and polish study casts.
Other job titles for this occupation (21)
Certified Dental Assistant (CDA) · Certified Registered Dental Assistant · Dental Assistant (DA) · Expanded Dental Assistant · Expanded Duty Dental Assistant (EDDA) · Expanded Functions Dental Assistant (EFDA) · Oral Surgery Assistant · Orthodontic Assistant (Ortho Assistant) · Registered Dental Assistant (RDA) · Surgical Dental Assistant · Dental Aide · Dental Nurse · Dental Office Assistant · Dental Specialist · Dentist Attendant · Expanded Duties Dental Assistant · Expanded Function Dental Assistant (EFDA) · General Practical Dental Assistant · Orthodontic Dental Assistant · Orthodontist Assistant · Pediatric Dental Assistant