Category Archives: Before You Buy
Aug
Both are great ways to make more money, pay off student loans, and build real wealth over your career. So for young dentists the question often comes up: should I build or buy? There’s no shortage of opinions in dental forums, but let me give you my two cents as someone who has spent over a decade helping dentists buy practices.
Aug
The average dental practice in the U.S. costs about $520K. But I don’t like national averages here, because it’s misleading for your specific situation and practice. There are just too many other factors in the mix. How many operatories does it have? How many doctors? Is it a specialty practice? What city is it in? Which neighborhood? And so on. You get the idea.
So let’s look at it a different way.
Aug
The average dental school grad in 2023 came out of school with a whopping $296,500 in student loan debt. Woof.
In one way, those loans are great! They got you into a great career with high earning potential. On the other hand, we don’t have to pretend that they’re not a huge drag. So how best to get rid of them?
Aug
When buying a dental practice, you’re going to assemble a team to help you out. As I’ve said elsewhere, the most important member of your team is your dental-specific attorney. Next is your accountant. But there are others as well. A banker, a broker, equipment reps, insurance agents, and possibly some other consultants as well.
With so many people involved, which voices should you turn to first?
Before You Buy, Due Diligence
Am I Getting the Dental Practice I Paid For? Two Flavors of Due Diligence
Jul
“Am I buying what I think I’m buying?” If you’re going to spend hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of dollars buying a dental practice, you should be sure you’re getting the dream office that was advertised to you, and not what used car dealers call a “lemon.” That’s where Initial Due Diligence comes in.
Jun
If you’re buying a dental practice, you’ll need to have a few people on your team. I tell dentists the only absolutely vital, must-hire person on your team is your dental-specific attorney—do not attempt to buy a practice without one. The next name on that list, though, is your accountant, who is almost as important.
Jun
An underappreciated first step in buying a dental practice? Decide whether you want to buy one at all.
I’m obviously biased, since I’ve spent the last decade-plus helping dentists buy practices, so even I have to back up every once in a while and remind myself: it’s not for everyone!
Keeping patients happy is, no surprise, how you have a successful practice that brings in plenty of cash for you.
If you as a practice owner only do these three things, they’re already in the top 5% of dental practices nationwide in terms of their operations.
May
I’m a numbers guy. I love spreadsheets, statistics, and the quantitative side of analyzing a practice. But just as important is the qualitative part of the analysis. Sure, it might be a great practice on paper. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good for you.
Here are the top 7 questions I tell dentists to ask themselves about a potential practice to buy.
Apr
If you’re a dental associate, your student loans probably look like Mount Kilimanjaro. Yeah, you’ll conquer it eventually, but that’s a heck of a climb to get there. And if you stay in an associate or employee role, that will be one tough summit.
The average dental school grad in 2022 came out of school with just shy of $294,000 in student loan debt. To put it mildly: yikes. And that’s just the average! While some have a bit less, some have twice that amount. Maybe you’re in that boat—if so you’re not alone. A quick google search shows that there are a ton of current and former students worried about how to pay all of that off.
So, how do you do it? How do you pay down those student loans as fast as possible?
