Dental Practice Transition Services

With our partners having a combined 100+ years of experience, we understand that every practice transition isn’t the same. Whether it’s a one buyer-one seller transition, one buyer buying into a partnership, a partnership of buyers buying a large practice, two practices merging into one, the purchase of patient charts, the sale to a DSO, etc., we’ve been there done that! Many transitions include technical income tax related issues as well as specific issues that impact the financial concerns of both parties. At Dental CPAs, we offer many CPA transition Services for dental practice transitions, for the buyer and the seller.

Buyer Representation

We offer a range of dental bookkeeping and accounting services, from simple data review to outsourced bookkeeping and bill payment.

Seller Reprepesention

Navigating the complexities of the tax code can be confusing- to say the least. Our business and individual tax preparation services make filing your income tax returns as painless as possible.

Start-Up CPA Service

Our trusted financial consultants can help you evaluate your practice operations and provide you with valuable feedback and advice about your practice’s key performance indicators

Other Transition Services

Dental Practice Merger of two or more practices

For a dentist that is looking to buy the patient charts of another practice and merger those patients into their existing practice we can assist them as its substantially different than someone looking to purchase an exiting practice in its entirety. The buyer needs to evaluate certain aspects of the selling practice such as the type of patients the practice has compared to theirs (PPOs, HMO, Medicaid, FFS, etc), they need to compare their fee schedules to make sure similar, they need to valuate any staff they wish to hire from the practice to make sure compensation and benefits are comparable to what they currently offer to their team, etc. It’s a completely different approach that requires experience and knowledge in this type or merger and the structure of the transaction is vastly different in most cases then the traditional complete practice acquisition.

Then there are times when two or more practices with owners who want to continue working and owning, desire to pursue a practice merger with one larger practice in one space OR one larger practice with multiple locations sharing the same name. This type of merger is much more complicated and not only involves the merging of the owners, it also involves the merging of staff members, fees schedules, internal policies and procedures and so on. It’s a much more complicated endeavor that requires many years of experience and knowledge on how to structure the transaction to minimize the inevitable road bumps that will be there. We know how to navigate these transitions from every aspect, including the income tax aspects.

Practice Buy-in to form a Partnership

We are often approached by either the owner or a practice looking to offer a partnership opportunity to their associate or the associate approaches us when they are offered a partnership opportunity by their employer. While many aspects of this transition are covered in are Buyer Representation services or Seller CPA services, they offer more complexities since the consulting we provide needs to go beyond the actual transition. What we mean is we have to be concerned with the ongoing operations of the resulting partnership. For example, how will decisions be made, how will partners be compensated for their various tasks whether its clinical or management services and how will profits and\or losses be allocated. What happens down the road when one partner is ready to retire or god forbid, one partner dies or becomes disabled?

Once again, this type of transaction is usually more complex than the traditional complete practice acquisition or sale and requires knowledgeable advisors to walk the doctors through the process to avoid any landmines that may exist.

DSO Offers and Sales

Unless you’ve been living under a rock over the past five to ten years, you know that DSOs are very active in the dental community and are actively looking to grow and expand by acquiring practices. we know they are aggressively seeking out dentists and their practices with emails, texts, calls, faxes and other sales literature. We even see DSOs competing and bidding for the same practice!

With our years of experience and knowledge in dental practice transitions, we are perfectly suited to assist the owner who is either looking to transition out of their dental practice within a couple of years, OR the owner who is isn’t ready to give up the handpiece and is considering cashing in on some of their equity. There are so many aspects to an DSO offer that many potential sellers simply aren’t equipped to fully evaluate these offers. We strongly suggest that anyone considering a DSO sale should consult with an advisor well before seeking offers, at least ninety days prior to seeking offers. We strongly suggest that the potential seller seek offers from multiple DSOs and let them know you’re looking at different DSO offers. This is just an example of what a potential seller needs to know when considering a DSO sale:

Do your EBITDA calcs BEFORE allowing a DSO to do their own calculations
Understand what YOUR timeline is to continue providing clinical services
Understand HOW DSOs make money when they purchase practices
Understand HOW they intend to pay you for your practice (cash, stock, incentives, future value, etc)
Understand what YOUR obligations will be working for the DSO and what your compensation will be working for the DSO
Understand WHEN you can terminate your relationship with the DSO and the potential cost to you to do so if you choose to terminate early

We can help the potential seller get educated about these transactions and help them assess each opportunity and how it will impact them, not only in the year of a sale, over the remaining career.