Method
How verification works
Any directory can print a licence number. The large Mexican sites already do. What makes a number useful is knowing where it came from, when it was checked, and how to repeat the check. So that is what gets published next to every one.
Three separate things, checked separately
These get conflated constantly, including by clinics themselves, and they are not the same claim.
1. The federal licence to practise: cédula profesional
This is the one that matters most and the one people skip. A dentist practising legally anywhere in Mexico holds a cédula profesional issued through the Secretaría de Educación Pública. It is the licence to practise dentistry at all, it is a matter of public record, and it is searchable by anyone at the Registro Nacional de Profesionistas. The number is confirmed to match the name, and both it and the date of the check are published.
What it proves: this person completed a recognised dental degree and is federally licensed. What it does not prove: anything about a specialty.
2. Specialty board certification
A general licence does not make someone an oral surgeon, an endodontist or an orthodontist. Specialties in Mexico are certified by their own councils, and a certificate carries a validity window, usually five years, after which it has to be renewed.
A note specific to dentistry: CONACEM, the national committee that certifies medical specialists, holds only one dental council, for oral and maxillofacial surgery. Every other dental specialty certifies through its own council instead. That is why this site names the council on the profile rather than waving at a single national body, and it is why a site claiming to "CONACEM-verify" a general dentist does not understand what it is claiming.
Where a certificate exists, its number and both validity dates are published. Once the end date passes, the profile shows the certification as lapsed with that date, and it stops counting toward the dentist's verification level. A badge that silently outlives the certificate behind it is worse than no badge.
3. The clinic's sanitary licence
A fully licensed dentist can work somewhere that is not licensed. Facilities are regulated separately by COFEPRIS, so this is recorded as its own line rather than folded into the dentist's credentials.
What the badges mean
Licence verified
This dentist's cédula profesional was found in the federal registry and it matches the name on the listing. The number and the date of the check are on the profile.
Board certified
A specialty council has certified this dentist, the certificate number is published, and the certificate is currently inside its validity window. This badge requires a verified licence underneath it.
Certification lapsed
A certificate exists but its end date has passed. Certifications lapse for administrative reasons as well as substantive ones, and they can be renewed, so this is information rather than an accusation. Ask about it.
Not verified
This could not be confirmed against the registry, or it has not been checked yet. Treat the listing as self-reported.
Check the work
None of this is worth anything if you have to take it on trust. Every profile links to the registry that the check came from, and there is a walkthrough for doing it yourself. It takes a couple of minutes. If you find something on this site that does not match the registry, report it and the listing gets corrected.
Questions about the method
Who does the checking?
Every check is done by hand, one dentist at a time. There is no automated feed behind this. The federal licence lookup is a public web form protected by a captcha, so it cannot be scripted, which means each check is a person sitting down and doing it. At the scale this site operates that is a feature: each check produces a dated record instead of a number scraped from somewhere and trusted.
What happens if a licence cannot be confirmed?
The listing says "Not verified" and stays visible. Deleting it would just mean finding that dentist through an ad with no check at all. What you get instead is an explicit statement that it could not be confirmed, and a link so you can try yourself.
Does paying change a verification result?
No, and this is the one thing the whole site depends on. Dentists pay to be listed and promoted. A licence is either confirmed against the registry or it is not. Payment can move a dentist within a verification level, never across one, and the disclosure sits in the footer of every page.
How often is a check repeated?
A check older than 365 days is marked as due for re-check on the profile itself, so you can see the age of the information rather than assuming it is current. Specialty certifications also carry their own expiry date, and the profile shows that separately.
Is a verified licence the same as a recommendation?
No. A confirmed licence tells you this person is legally qualified to practise and that the government registry says so. It tells you nothing about whether they are good, whether their lab work is any good, or whether they are right for your case. Those are different questions and this site does not pretend to answer them.