Category Archives: Due Diligence

When you’re assessing a potential practice to buy, look hard at the office’s operations. There’s a lot to consider, and the list could get long. Instead, I’m going to keep it to three parts of practice operations that are all about patient experience.

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.

I often say that if you’re worried about keeping patients after the transition, your focus should be on the staff. As the doctor and business owner, you’re the final say on most things in the practice—but your staff are the front lines, the people your patients will have the most interaction with. Here’s what you should think about when meeting the staff for the first time.

Seeing a practice in person is a must before buying it. When you’re looking for a practice to buy, the top-level numbers and location may catch your eye—but before you put in an offer, and certainly before you sign on the line, make sure you’ve looked over the practice thoroughly yourself.

After you’ve talked to the selling dentist and their broker about your interest, you’ll schedule a visit to the premises. Here’s what you can expect as a buyer when it comes to in-person visits of a dental practice.

Buying a dental practice is NOT like buying a home. In a home sale, realtors and agents often love to keep the buyer and seller apart. But if you’re buying a dental practice, you need to get to know the seller, and you need to do it right.

You and the seller should be a reasonably good fit for each other, both in clinical and business terms. We’re not talking about an exact carbon copy here, but the Venn diagram should have some significant overlap.

So how do you figure that out? In this post I’ll tell you not only what you’re looking for, but also when you should look for it.

In a dental practice transition, you’ll have hired experts for a reason, and they’ll do their expert thing.

But hang on, because you’re an expert, too. Let me explain.

For many of us, the word “negotiations” is a little tough. It sounds confrontational, difficult, and kind of scary. It’s not, I promise! At least, it doesn’t have to be. I’ll tell you why.