Selling a Dental Practice, Prepared Years Ahead

Clean, consistent financials that a buyer can verify, a stable and transferable patient base, a staff that stays through transition, orderly records and a settled real estate story. Buyers underwrite what they can verify, and preparation is what makes verification easy.

Practices that document their funnel, from production through collections, sell faster and closer to their modeled value.

An associate or partner transition, an individual buyer, a group or a DSO. Each values the practice differently: associates value continuity, groups value production and structure, DSOs value systems and reporting. Understanding which buyer fits the practice changes how it is presented.

Some owners achieve better outcomes by developing an internal buyer than by facing the market, which is why succession is often the sale plan.

The allocation of the purchase price across equipment, goodwill and covenants, the timing of the sale across tax years and the seller's post-sale role all shape the after-tax result, subject to applicable law and the seller's circumstances.

Transition commitments, from patient letters to a defined handover period, protect the continuity the buyer paid for and are usually the difference between a clean close and a rocky one.