1.4 Board of Dentistry: Composition, Councils, Rulemaking & Probable Cause

The Board of Dentistry

The Board is created within the Department of Health by s. 466.004, F.S. It is the regulatory body: it adopts rules, sets standards, certifies applicants for licensure, and imposes discipline. The Department is the administrative and prosecutorial arm: it receives applications and fees, investigates complaints, and files administrative complaints. Questions that ask "who does X" are usually testing that division of labour.

Composition — s. 466.004(1)

Additional statutory qualifiers:

• Each dentist member must have been actively engaged in the practice of dentistry primarily as a clinical practitioner for at least 5 years immediately preceding appointment, and must remain primarily in clinical practice during all subsequent periods of appointment.
• Any member connected in any way with a dental college or community college must comply with s. 456.007 (the conflict-of-interest provision limiting how many board members may be connected with a single institution).
• At least one member of the board must be 60 years of age or older.

Terms — the most commonly mis-stated fact

Members are appointed for 4-year terms, but may serve no more than a total of 10 years. The cap is stated as a total number of years, not as a number of consecutive terms. Study material that says "no more than two consecutive full four-year terms" or "a maximum of eight years" is describing a different state's rule.

Advisory councils — s. 466.004(2)

Two councils are named in statute, and the Board chair may create others with the concurrence of the State Surgeon General.

Council on Dental Hygiene — five members: one dental hygienist board member (who chairs it), one dentist board member, and three hygienists actively practising in Florida. In making appointments the chair must consider recommendations from the Florida Dental Hygiene Association. The council must meet at least three times a year. It develops rules and policy recommendations on educational, preventive, or therapeutic dental hygiene services; hygiene licensure, discipline, and regulation; and hygiene education.

The procedural teeth are in the referral clause: any rule or policy the Board proposes on that part of dentistry must be referred to the council for a recommendation before the Board takes final action. The Board may proceed without a recommendation only if the council fails to submit one in a timely fashion as prescribed by the Board.

Council on Dental Assisting — one board member as chair plus three dental assistants actively engaged in dental assisting. It meets at the request of the Board chair or a majority of the Board.

Council members serve 4-year terms and are reimbursed for expenses in the manner of Board members.

Headquarters and organisation

Section 466.004(3) requires the Board to maintain its headquarters in Tallahassee. Rule Chapter 64B5-1 governs Board organisation and procedure and currently contains two operative rules:

• 64B5-1.001, Public Comment — interested parties may comment after an agenda item is introduced at a properly noticed meeting, and are limited to three (3) minutes, excluding time spent answering questions from members, staff, or board counsel. The chair may extend the time. A party must notify board staff in writing of its interest to be heard, identifying itself, its position, and its speaker if it is a group of five (5) or more persons; pseudonyms are permitted.
• 64B5-1.002, Unexcused Absences of Board Members — an absence is unexcused unless approved by the chair or the chair's designee before the meeting is missed. Illness or injury of the member, illness/injury/death of a family member, a court order or governmental business, travel delays or cancellations, and any conflict or extraordinary circumstance approved by the chair are grounds for excusal. Arriving late or leaving early without prior approval is an unexcused absence.

Rulemaking

The Legislature delegates rulemaking to the Board in s. 466.004(4) and in individual substantive sections. Rulemaking follows Chapter 120, F.S., the Administrative Procedure Act: notice of rule development published in the Florida Administrative Register, an opportunity for workshops and hearings, review by the Legislature's Joint Administrative Procedures Committee for statutory authority, and filing with the Department of State. Each rule in Chapter 64B5 carries a Rulemaking Authority line and a Law Implemented line — when a question asks whether the Board could lawfully adopt a given requirement, those two lines are where the answer lives.

Chapter 120 also gives licensees two petition mechanisms: a declaratory statement asking how a statute or rule applies to the petitioner's own particular circumstances, and a petition for variance or waiver of a rule where the underlying statutory purpose is achieved by other means and applying the rule literally would create a substantial hardship or violate principles of fairness.

Probable cause

Before the Department may file an administrative complaint, probable cause must be found. Rule 64B5-13.001, F.A.C., governs the determination and the panel's composition; s. 456.073, F.S., supplies the confidentiality framework. Section 8.4 works through the disciplinary process end to end.