What Does FAAID Mean?

The Short Answer: What FAAID Stands For

FAAID stands for Fellow of the American Academy of Implant Dentistry. It is the designation the AAID authorizes for dental practitioners who have completed its Fellow-level credentialing process. When you see FAAID after a clinician's name, it signals that the person has been examined by AAID examiners on real implant cases and elected to Fellow status by the Academy's governing board.

This article uses the acronym in that sense only. Other organizations in other fields use similar letter strings, but nothing here concerns them. If you want the broader overview of the credential, our explainers on what FAAID is and what FAAID stands for cover the same ground from different angles, and FAAID meaning addresses common search variations.

Who Awards the Designation and Why It Matters

The designation comes from the American Academy of Implant Dentistry, which publishes the eligibility rules, administers the examinations through teams of AAID examiners, and announces how successful candidates may use the credential. Election is not automatic after passing the oral exam: it follows approval by the Admissions and Credentials Board and a vote of the Board of Trustees.

That governance chain is part of what the letters mean. They represent clinical competence judged by peers, plus ongoing membership in the Academy. If you let AAID membership lapse, you do not simply keep the letters indefinitely, because maintenance requires active membership. If you are weighing whether the investment makes sense for your practice, see our analysis of whether the FAAID certification is worth it.

Fellow vs. Associate Fellow: Where FAAID Sits

AAID credentialing has more than one rung, and people often conflate them. The Fellow designation is distinct from the Associate Fellow track, which includes a written Part 1. Candidates reach Fellow in one of two ways: they are already Associate Fellows in good standing, or they have passed Associate Fellow Part 1 and meet the Fellow eligibility rules.

Keep the scopes separate when you study. The Associate Fellow Part 1 has its own written blueprint, while the Fellow exam is about your documented cases and how you reason through standardized ones. The full eligibility picture is in FAAID requirements.

How the Designation Is Earned

Earning FAAID means meeting experience requirements, submitting documented cases, and then passing an oral examination.

Eligibility on paper

• A license as a dental practitioner.
• Either Associate Fellow status in good standing, or a pass on Associate Fellow Part 1 plus meeting Fellow eligibility.
• At least five years of experience in implant dentistry.
• At least 400 hours of implant continuing education, of which 75 hours must be participatory or hands-on.
• A demonstrated surgical and prosthetic competence, with candidates having provided surgical and/or prosthetic treatment for each submitted case.

A full-time implant dentistry, periodontal, oral and maxillofacial surgery, or prosthodontics program lasting at least one year satisfies the educational requirement.

The exam itself

The Fellow examination is conducted virtually. Plan on roughly three hours, with up to four when you include equipment testing. You need an Internet-capable computer with a webcam, a cellular device, and a prior equipment check. During the session you discuss five standardized clinical cases and defend five cases you submitted on different patients. Question style is conversational and clinical: examiners probe your diagnosis, planning rationale, surgical and prosthetic decisions, and how you handled complications. For a candid look at the difficulty, read how hard the FAAID exam is.

The Five Case Types Behind the Letters

The submitted cases are the heart of the credential. All five must meet shared standards: final prostheses in function for at least one year by the examination period, implants at least 3 mm in diameter, a written narrative, diagnostic photographs and radiographs, and patient releases. Each of the five must also fall into a required category.

The one-year-in-function rule has a practical consequence: you cannot assemble a Fellow submission from recent surgeries. A case you placed this year may not qualify by the time the exam arrives. Start identifying and documenting candidate cases long before you apply, and capture photos, radiographs, and releases at the time of treatment rather than reconstructing them later.

The Four Case-Report Headings

The AAID's guidebook, Demystifying the AAID Credentialing Examinations: Your Guidebook To Increasing Your Chances for Success, outlines how the Fellow case report is organized on pages 18 and 19. Four principal headings structure each written report. These are preparation headings for your case documentation, not an official exam-domain count and not a weighted blueprint; no weights are published for them, and they do not exhaustively describe what examiners may ask orally. Our FAAID exam domains guide goes deeper on each.

Fees, Dates, and Election Mechanics

The financial picture has one wrinkle worth flagging. AAID's live fee page and its linked 2024 guide list different amounts, and both are official sources. Treat the figures below as a range to verify, not a settled price.

The substitution amount is an alternative fee for that route, not an extra charge added on top of the exam fee. Confirm with AAID which schedule and route apply to you before paying. After election, regular Fellow dues are USD 695 annually, payable January 1. For a fuller budgeting view, including costs beyond exam fees, see FAAID certification cost.

Timeline as of October 7, 2026

• The next application window opens in November 2026 and closes February 1, 2027.
• The virtual Fellow oral/case exam is scheduled for April 3, 2027.
• Successful oral candidates must attend an Annual Business Meeting for induction within two years.

Dates shift between cycles, so check the Academy's schedule directly and use our FAAID exam dates page as a planning companion.

Using the Letters After You Earn Them

Once elected, you may use FAAID after your name in accordance with the Academy's announcement guidance for newly credentialed members. In practice, clinicians display it on websites, referral letters, and credential walls because it communicates a peer-reviewed standard in implant dentistry to patients and referring colleagues.

The people most likely to care about the designation are referring dentists and specialists, patients researching implant providers, group practices and implant centers building a credentialed team, and academic or continuing-education programs seeking qualified faculty. Compensation effects vary widely by practice model and region, and no reliable figure is published, so treat any dollar claim skeptically. Our pages on FAAID earnings and FAAID jobs discuss how the credential tends to factor into practice opportunities without inventing numbers.

Sequencing Your Preparation

Because the Fellow exam is case-driven, preparation is mostly documentation and rehearsal rather than memorization. One sensible ordering follows the four report headings, with the early weeks spent on the material that takes longest to fix.

For a structured approach to the overall effort, see our FAAID study guide and the condensed FAAID cheat sheet. You can also keep your clinical reasoning sharp with the practice questions on our main practice test site.

Frequently Asked Questions

If you are still deciding whether to pursue the credential, start with the FAAID certification overview, then work through the requirements and case documentation before you commit to an application window.