What Is FAAID?

What the FAAID Designation Actually Is

FAAID stands for Fellow of the American Academy of Implant Dentistry. It is the authorized designation the American Academy of Implant Dentistry (AAID) grants to members who complete its Fellow credentialing pathway. Unlike a multiple-choice licensing test, the Fellow examination is a clinical peer-review process. You are not asked to recognize the right answer from a list; you are asked to show, with real patients and real records, that you can diagnose, plan, surgically place, and restore dental implants at a high standard.

That distinction shapes everything about preparation. A candidate does not memorize a question bank. A candidate assembles a body of documented clinical work, learns to narrate it clearly, and rehearses defending decisions to experienced examiners. If you are looking for broader orientation on the credential's name and terminology, the related explainers on what FAAID stands for and the FAAID certification cover the basics, while this article focuses on how the process works in practice.

Who Can Apply

Eligibility is built on three pillars: licensure, experience and education, and demonstrated competence. A full walkthrough lives in the FAAID requirements guide, but the essentials are as follows.

Licensure and Membership Route

Applicants must be licensed dental practitioners. They must also either be AAID Associate Fellows in good standing, or have passed Associate Fellow Part 1 and meet the Fellow eligibility criteria. In other words, the Fellow credential sits at the top of a staged ladder, and you enter it through the Associate Fellow level.

Experience and Continuing Education

• At least five years of implant-dentistry experience.
• At least 400 hours of implant continuing education.
• Of those 400 hours, at least 75 must be participatory or hands-on.

A qualifying full-time implant dentistry, periodontal, oral and maxillofacial surgery, or prosthodontics program lasting at least one year satisfies the educational requirement. Candidates who completed such training should confirm how it maps onto the application rather than assuming it replaces every other requirement.

Demonstrated Competence

Candidates must demonstrate both surgical and prosthetic competence, and must have provided surgical and/or prosthetic treatment for each submitted case. This matters: you cannot submit a case you merely observed or that a colleague treated entirely without your involvement.

How the Virtual Oral/Case Examination Works

The Fellow examination is delivered virtually and administered by AAID examiner teams. According to the credentialing guide, candidates discuss five standardized clinical cases and defend five submitted cases drawn from different patients. The guide specifies approximately three hours for the examination itself, and up to four hours when you include equipment testing.

Technology is part of the preparation. Candidates need an Internet-capable computer with a webcam and a separate cellular device, and must complete an equipment check before the exam day. Treat that check as a hard deadline in your own timeline rather than a formality. A dropped connection or a misconfigured camera is an avoidable source of stress when you are already managing a long clinical discussion.

If you want a sense of how demanding this format is relative to other credentials, see how hard the FAAID exam is. Note that no current numeric passing threshold or pass-rate statistic has been verified for this pathway, which is why the passing score and pass rate discussions on this site stay qualitative rather than quoting figures.

The Five Required Case Types

The heart of the application is the case portfolio. AAID requires five submitted cases, each on a different patient, and each of a specified type. Every one of them must have a final prosthesis in function for at least one year by the examination period, use implants at least 3 mm in diameter, and include a narrative, diagnostic photographs and radiographs, and patient releases.

Notice how this list forces breadth. You cannot build a portfolio from five straightforward single-tooth restorations. The set spans removable and fixed prosthetics, a grafting-dependent posterior case, an esthetically sensitive anterior case, and a timing-sensitive extraction case. Examiners can probe any of these, so you need to be comfortable discussing indications, alternatives, complications, and outcomes across the whole spectrum.

One caution about legacy material: AAID's older FAQ still contains an earlier submitted-case and rating scheme. The current five-case requirements take precedence over that older text. If you encounter conflicting numbers of cases or different rating language in an outdated page or a colleague's recollection, defer to the current Fellow requirements and the credentialing guide.

The Four Case-Report Preparation Headings

The Fellow Examination Case Report Outline, found on pages 18 and 19 of the credentialing guidebook, organizes the written case report under four principal headings. These are best understood as required case-report preparation headings, not as an exhaustive blueprint of everything an examiner might ask and not as an official domain count with published weights. No weights are published for them. For a deeper treatment, see the FAAID exam domains guide.

A practical consequence: because each of your five cases will be written up under the first three headings, consistency matters. An examiner reading five reports should see the same disciplined structure each time, even though the clinical content differs sharply from an overdenture to an anterior maxilla case.

Fees, Application Window and Exam Date

Fee information on AAID's pages is not fully consistent, and honesty about that conflict is better than picking a number and hoping. The current live fee page lists the following, while the linked 2024 guide lists higher figures.

Because the two official schedules disagree, confirm the applicable route fee directly with AAID before submitting payment. The guide describes substitution as an alternative fee, not an additional charge on top of the examination fee. For a fuller breakdown that includes dues and related costs, see the FAAID certification cost guide.

Dates to Plan Around

As of October 7, 2026, the next application window opens in November 2026 and closes February 1, 2027. The Fellow oral/case examination is scheduled virtually for April 3, 2027. The application notice that names both Associate Fellow and Fellow is shared, so read it carefully to make sure you are following the Fellow-specific steps. The FAAID exam dates guide tracks scheduling details as they are published.

Election, Induction and Staying a Fellow

Passing the oral/case examination is a major milestone, but election to Fellow status is a governance step as well. Election follows approval by the Admissions and Credentials Board and a vote of the Board of Trustees. Successful oral candidates must then attend an Annual Business Meeting for induction within two years.

Maintaining the designation depends on staying an active AAID member. Regular Fellow dues are USD 695 annually, payable January 1. Budget for this as a recurring cost of holding the credential, not a one-time expense. If you are weighing that ongoing cost against the benefits, the analysis of whether the FAAID is worth it frames the decision.

Sequencing Your Preparation

Because the Fellow process is portfolio-driven, the useful way to organize preparation is by deliverable rather than by generic study blocks. The order below reflects the one-year-in-function rule and the structure of the case report. For a longer plan, see the FAAID study guide.

The standardized-case portion deserves its own attention. Those five cases are not your patients, so you cannot lean on familiarity. Practice reasoning through unfamiliar presentations out loud, naming the findings, the options, and your recommendation. A cheat-sheet style review of core facts, such as the one in the FAAID cheat sheet, helps keep the logistics straight while you focus your energy on clinical reasoning.

Where the Credential Carries Weight

The FAAID signals to colleagues, referring practitioners, and patients that your implant work has been reviewed by peers against a defined standard and found to meet it. It is most meaningful in settings where implant competence is a differentiator: private practices built around implant dentistry, referral relationships with general dentists who send restorative or surgical cases, and academic or continuing-education teaching roles where credibility with peers matters. No specific salary or employment figures have been verified for this credential, so treat any numeric claims you encounter elsewhere with caution. Our salary guide and jobs overview discuss the practical landscape in qualitative terms.

If you want structured practice material while you prepare, the main practice test site offers review resources you can use alongside your case work, and you can return to the practice platform whenever you need to reinforce foundational content.

Frequently Asked Questions