Most dentists don’t fail at practice ownership because the deal was bad. They fail because they talked themselves out of trying. Here’s what actually determines whether you’re ready.
By Brian Hanks | Dental Buyer Advocates
Part 1 of our “How to Feel Ready to Buy a Dental Practice” series.
One of my most memorable clients called me on a Tuesday afternoon, straight-up bawling.
Not because the deal fell apart. Because she’d just signed the papers on her practice and it finally hit her that she was really an owner.
Two years ago she sat across from me listing every reason she could never buy a dental practice. Student loans. Fresh out of school. Zero business experience. Didn’t feel ready. She had a full arsenal of excuses and she believed every single one.
We ran the numbers on a few practices anyway, and turned several options down before landing on the one she fell in love with.
Four months later she closed. We helped her knock $75k off the asking price. Caught a valuation screw-up that saved her another $6,300. Then she called me from the Pacific Northwest, crying on a random Tuesday not because she was sad, but from pure relief that I hadn’t let her talk herself out of achieving one of her life goals.
This is the thing that drives me the craziest about dentists who tell me they don’t feel ready to buy a practice and are scared to fail. Most people don’t fail because the deal was bad. They fail because they convince themselves not to even try.
Why You Don’t Feel Ready — And Why That Makes Sense
In fifteen years of working exclusively on the buyer side of dental practice acquisitions, I have had some version of that conversation hundreds of times. Dentists who are qualified, financially capable, and genuinely positioned to buy who are convinced that some future version of themselves will be better prepared than the current one.
What they’re describing isn’t a financial problem. It’s a feeling. And feelings, it turns out, are a terrible proxy for readiness.
Let me give you dentists a little credit about why that feeling makes sense. It makes sense because you’re confusing the feeling of being a great clinician with the feeling you need to have to go through a complex process, like buying a practice.
Great clinicians don’t wing it. If you’re good at the craft of dentistry, not only do you feel ready but you have data to show that you’re ready. You’ve trained in whatever procedure you’re about to do. You’ve practiced it. You’ve gotten feedback from others on your technique and knowledge. Clinical outcomes are important to you so you don’t rush into clinical decisions until you feel ready.
But here’s why you can ignore the “I’m not ready” feeling.
That sequence of events to “feel” ready to do a procedure is totally different from the feeling you need to have to buy a practice. Buying a practice is a whole lot more like other big, one- or two-time events in your life, like the decision to get into a long-term romantic relationship, buy a house, move to another city or state, or become a parent. If you’ve done any of those things and you’re honest, you’ll admit that while you probably did some research and reading to prepare — the thing that allowed you to “feel” confident in those big decisions was actually doing it.
Let me repeat: the thing that will help you feel ready to buy a practice is actually buying a practice.
The ADA Health Policy Institute has tracked ownership rates among dentists for two decades. What the data shows is striking: the percentage of dentists who eventually own a practice has remained essentially stable (about 89%). What has changed is the timeline. Dentists today are waiting about 5 years longer to own than they did 15 years ago. That delay has a cost that most of them never calculate.
Every year of delay is a year of equity growth that doesn’t happen. A year of tax advantages that aren’t captured. A year of compounding ownership profits that can’t be recovered. The cost doesn’t announce itself. It just accumulates quietly in the background while the dentist waits to feel ready.
“Now that I own an imperfect but highly profitable practice, I know that no one could have prepared me for everything I need to know as an owner. I waited 4 years longer than I should have to own my practice!” — Dr. Tushar P., Pensacola FL
The Two Questions That Actually Matter
Here’s what I’ve learned from more than 1,400 transitions across 49 states: the dentists who succeed at acquisition aren’t the ones who felt the most ready. They’re the ones who asked the right questions before they committed.
Before you spend three months on formal due diligence, ask these two questions. I call them the Lemon Test.
Question one: What’s the Least You’re Likely to Make?
After the new debt service, taxes, facility costs, and a fair salary for your own clinical work — does this practice actually leave you anything? A practice with impressive collections and a fixed overhead structure that swallows all of it isn’t an opportunity. It’s a trap. The least you’re likely to make will help you calm down and think, “well, even if this is all I ever get I can be okay with it.”
Question two: What’s the Ceiling on How Much You Could Make?
Is this practice close to its maximum potential, or is there real room to grow? A practice where nothing is referred out, there are only 3 or 4 operatories with no room to expand, consistently high spending on advertising, already taking all the insurances, and the fee schedule has been raised year after year already is a practice at its ceiling. What you want is a practice with a strong active patient base, a hygiene program generating consistent recurring revenue, room in the schedule, referred out procedures you want to keep and the fee structure to grow.
These two questions won’t replace due diligence. But they’ll tell you quickly whether a practice deserves your due diligence. At Dental Buyer Advocates, our team does this assessment in about 10 minutes.
“I let my $250k student loan balance scare me out of taking the leap into ownership. I’m making double as an owner what I made as an associate and finally paying off my loans. I wish I would have just bought the practice sooner!” — Dr. Courtney B., Milwaukee, WI
What Getting There Actually Looks Like
The dentists I’ve watched struggle most aren’t the ones who moved too fast. They’re the ones who kept waiting — for the loans to feel smaller, the market to feel more certain, the right moment to arrive.
That moment doesn’t come. What comes instead is another year passing, and another, and another year of lost opportunity to learn the leadership skills needed to run a practice well.
The dentist who called me crying on a Tuesday afternoon didn’t feel ready when we first talked. She felt ready after she did the work — after she asked the right questions, looked at the real numbers, and stopped treating a feeling like a fact.
If you’re an associate who has been telling yourself “not yet” — it might be worth at least running the numbers. You might be closer than you think.
Ready to take the next step? Download the first chapter of How to Buy a Dental Practice, 5th Edition free, or book a no-pressure consultation at dentalbuyeradvocates.com.
