# What public records exist about a dental practice? Six kinds of public record can exist for a dental practice: state licenses, business-entity filings, federal provider registry entries, county permits, federal exclusion lists and HHS breach reports. DDSIntel reads them as signals and publishes only aggregates, against a base of 205,088 professionally active U.S. dentists in 2025 (ADA Health Policy Institute). By DDSIntel Editorial. Source: DDSIntel, https://ddsintel.com/lifecycle/what-public-records-show. Published 2026-10-26; data as of 2026-10-25. ## Key numbers - **205,088** professionally active U.S. dentists in 2025 (ADA Health Policy Institute, 2025; https://www.ada.org/resources/research/health-policy-institute/dentist-workforce) - **60** dentists per 100,000 U.S. residents (ADA Health Policy Institute, 2025; https://www.ada.org/resources/research/health-policy-institute/dentist-workforce) - **16.1%** of U.S. dentists were DSO-affiliated (ADA Health Policy Institute, The U.S. Dentist Workforce, 2025 update, 2024; https://www.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/ada-org/files/resources/research/hpi/US_dentist_workforce_2025.pdf) ## What does each record category show? State dental boards publish license status and public discipline; secretaries of state publish entity filings and officers; the federal provider registry lists providers and practice locations; counties publish permits; the federal exclusion list names excluded people and entities; and HHS publishes breach reports. The [practice lifecycle](https://ddsintel.com/lifecycle) explains how these map to stages. ## How are these records grouped into signals? DDSIntel groups them into five families: [regulatory](https://ddsintel.com/signals/regulatory-signals), [corporate](https://ddsintel.com/signals/corporate-signals), [facilities](https://ddsintel.com/signals/facilities-signals), [compliance](https://ddsintel.com/signals/compliance-signals) and [lifecycle](https://ddsintel.com/signals/lifecycle-signals) signals. Each shows an event, such as a license status change, a new officer or a permit. Together the families are published only in aggregate, by state and region, and they show events rather than owners’ intentions. ## What is not in public records? Financials, patient data, management agreements, sale negotiations and most private contracts are not public. That is why public records show events rather than intentions, and why [a signal is not a sale](https://ddsintel.com/signals/signal-is-not-a-sale). An observed signal never implies that an owner intends to sell. ## Can an owner correct what records show? Errors in a public record are fixed with the agency that keeps it, such as the state board, the secretary of state or CMS. Owners can also claim and correct their DDSIntel record; [how owners control their record](https://ddsintel.com/lifecycle/claim-your-practice-record) and the [owners page](https://ddsintel.com/owners) explain the choices. Related guides: [how owners control their record](https://ddsintel.com/lifecycle/claim-your-practice-record), [how long a dental practice sale takes](https://ddsintel.com/lifecycle/dental-practice-sale-timeline), [what happens when a dentist retires without a buyer](https://ddsintel.com/lifecycle/closing-a-dental-practice). National counts are on [how many dentists are in the U.S.](https://ddsintel.com/data/how-many-dentists-are-in-the-us). ## Frequently asked questions ### Is my practice information public record? Licenses, entity filings, provider registry entries, permits, exclusion-list entries and breach reports are generally public; financials and patient data are not. ### Does DDSIntel publish my practice’s records? No. Public pages show aggregates only and never name a dentist, an NPI, an address or a practice. ### How do I correct a public record? Contact the agency that maintains it; you can also correct your DDSIntel record through the owner area. ### Where do the sources come from? The [methodology](https://ddsintel.com/methodology) names each source category and how often it is read. ## Sources 1. ADA Health Policy Institute. The dentist workforce. https://www.ada.org/resources/research/health-policy-institute/dentist-workforce --- DDSIntel is a dental transition intelligence platform that detects pre-market dental practice transition signals for brokers, DSOs, lenders and the firms that serve them.