Your Full-Service Dental Broker
Our Selling Services
Professional Transition Strategies is here to make your transition a little smoother, a little easier, and a whole lot less painful. Selling a dental practice can be a stressful process, ensure you have all the facts to make a fully informed and educated decision with PTS.
Understanding where you are before making any decision is always the wiser choice, and making sure you have all the data can help lead you to the best outcome. Whether you want to make more money, have more free time, no longer want to deal with HR, or want to make some other change, we’ll lay out all of your options, based on research and data, so you can make an informed decision.
We are professional dental practice brokers, which means all we do is help people sell and buy dental practices. You may not sell a dental practice every day, but we do!
Trust in the Premier Broker for Your Dental Practice Sale
The experts at Professional Transition Strategies have helped hundreds of doctors throughout the country with their dental practice sales. Compared to other professional dental brokers, we have a highly active marketing approach to ensure your dental practice is in front of every doctor looking for an opportunity in your area. While we make sure your practice has tremendous visibility, we also believe that confidentiality is important, and finding the right buyer, not just the first potential buyer, is our ultimate goal.
Therefore, we implement a strategic approach to garner interest in your practice while also maintaining complete discretion. All of your prospective buyers are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement prior to receiving additional information about you and your practice.
We understand that transitioning a dental practice is not as simple as many may think. But with Professional Transition Strategies, we make the transition process easy, painless, and seamless for general and pediatric dentists, endodontists, orthodontists, prosthodontists, oral surgeons, and periodontists across the country.
We Begin Our Process by Performing an Overall Practice Analysis, Which Includes Numerical, Physical, & Emotional Aspects of Your Dental Practice
Numerical
- Profit and Loss Statements
- Patient Information
- Types of Procedures
- Primary Doctor’s Net Income
Physical
- Chairs/Lights/Equipment
- Office Updates Needed
- Office Location
Emotional
- Best Exit Strategy
- Financial Situation
- Employee Loyalty
- Transition Type
Loan Steps For Buying a Dental Practice
The first step in any loan process is to get pre-qualified, then you begin identifying potential dental practices that fit your location, size, and specifications needs.
After you identify an opportunity, you will go through the underwriting process with the bank. This is a very time-consuming and cumbersome process. You will provide a lot of information and proof of your ability to fund the impending deal. Please note that this time frame can range from a few weeks to a few months. Also note that it is standard for a broker to request needed documents from the seller, so you don’t have to. PTS works to make sure this process is as smooth as possible and can save you time, headaches, and potentially money.
One the funding decision is received, a closing date will be set, followed by the dental practice funding and the deal closing. It is also highly important to choose the right bank for you, and this might not always be the bank with the lowest interest rate. The interest rate is only one part of the overall loan package – other significant factors are term, bank specialization in dental practice lending, and their reputation.
With this large of an investment – whether it is new or existing – the most essential piece is the return on your investment. When you are calculating your ROI, the time value of your money should always be considered. The time value of money theory states that a dollar in the bank today is worth more than the expectation of receiving a dollar in the future. Of course, it is always important to remember the opportunity cost of these decisions.
Understanding Your Dental Practice Prospectus
To determine possible transition options as well as understand the appraised value of your practice, the team at Professional Transition Strategies will create a complete dental practice prospectus.
The practice prospectus will give you the value of your dental practice by using key metrics that are generally agreed upon within the practice’s specialty. This document will only be around 20 pages, but outline the categories that are of interest to potential buyers of your dental practice.
After you have a better understanding of the value of your dental practice, you may determine that the appraised price is less than what you expected, or need, to fulfill your dreams of a transition. Therefore, you may want to increase the value of your dental practice prior to moving forward with selling. Some ways to increase the value are:
Offer different types of treatments to patients.
For instance, if you are not currently doing implant work or ortho, begin offering those services
Increase your marketing, regardless if it is paid advertising, guerrilla marketing, or associations with which you can network
Lower your expenses, if you can ensure it does not come at the cost of topline revenue or your patients
Upgrade your facility; however, it is important to note that you won’t get dollar for dollar, therefore don’t just do it for the sake of selling your dental practice
Acquire or merge with another dental practice for economies of scale. This can grow exponentially whenever there are 4+ practices combinated
Types of Dental Practice Transitions
Not all practices nor transition are the same. And there are many factors that contribute to determining the right transition strategy for you. A few considerations are: the size of your dental practice, the location of your dental practice, types of plans accepted, number of operatories, and if there is an expansion opportunity in the future. It is also important to ask if you are looking to continue practicing with the dental practice longer, or do you want to sell and walk away?
We always offer individualised transition strategies, but some of the most common practice transitions are:
- Buy-Out: This is simply where a purchaser buys your dental practice for a
negotiated price with a relatively short transitionary period, typically an average
of three months. - Buy-In: This is when a specific buyer purchases a defined portion of your dental
practice for a negotiated amount from ‘Day One.’ In addition to a practice analysis,
PTS will perform a personality profile to ensure compatibility. - Associate to Buy-In (ROADMAP): This transition is when a potential buyer is
courted from a group of associates to buy-in over a period of time. This ensures
compatibility and allows time to figure out the future of the dental practice rather
than deciding from ‘Day One.’ Division of Power tends to be the biggest
consideration that needs to be discussed and made clear. - Associateship: Associates are easy to find, and this route allows you to maintain
full control. However, it is important to note that the success rate is only 20%. This is
because not everything is agreed upon from the very beginning. Therefore,
everyone tends to have different expectations in the end. PTS can help mitigate these
discrepancies of expectations.
- Merger: This is when two existing dental practices combine to become one entity
and, normally, as equal partners moving forward unless otherwise stated. - Roll-Up: In a Roll-Up, you purchase multiple dental practices to combine under
one entity in a group and maximize for economies of scale. Therefore, when your
dental practice is purchased, you can receive a higher value, ultimately making this
one of the most lucrative transition types, if you have the time. - Affiliation: An affiliation gives most of the business control to another entity,
typically a DSO or a group, with the purpose of slowly transitioning out of your
dental practice and giving up clinical control to that group. This can be an excellent
way to maximize value and retire.
Ultimately, there are various transition strategies to consider, and every situation is different. Therefore, no matter what transition type you are considering – looking to sell your dental practice, considering bringing on a partner, or looking to buy a dental practice — you are in good hands with PTS.
