ADAPT Blog

In April, we at ADA Practice Transitions celebrated our second anniversary. Our beginnings were modest, launching in just two states, Maine and Wisconsin. Within that first year, we expanded to six additional states. And now, by the end of our second year, we have expanded our service to all 50 states, with customers in every single one of them.

It is a human tendency to use an anniversary as a time of reflection. At ADAPT, our goal has always been to provide a better way of managing transitions for all of dentistry.

We started off with extensive research, where we often heard dentists complain how difficult it is to find a good match. No one had the scope to cast a wide net in matching sellers with buyers or owners with employees. We thought, “The ADA can do that,” and began designing the service to address those complaints.

It is astonishing how many articles, essays, and opinion pieces there are about generational differences between baby boomers and millennials. Not to mention the YouTube videos, memes, and TikToks poking fun and parodying one side or the other. My favorite is here (and I’m a boomer!).

The last thing I want to do is write yet another blog post pontificating on how the generations misunderstand one another. Instead, I want to focus on what both groups share – especially when talking about dentists working together in an office as owner and associate or transitioning a practice from one dentist to another.

DSOs are one of the most polarizing issues in the current dental economy. People seem to believe they are either “destroying dentistry as we know it” or “the best possible way to practice dentistry,” with very little room in between.

As ADA Practice Transitions (ADAPT) has expanded nationally, we hear a couple of questions over and over:

• How is ADAPT related to the American Dental Association?
• How is ADAPT different from a traditional broker?

Let’s start with ADAPT’s creation story.

Unfortunately, you probably already know the answer to the question “what does it actually cost to sell a dental practice?” – it depends.

Each sale is unique, and there are a number of factors and multiple ways of handling each aspect of the sale. All of them impact the total cost. In this post, we will review some of these factors, offer a range of costs, and talk about ways to minimize or avoid those costs.

First, I want to give an example of the lowest cost, most frictionless dental practice sale I have encountered.

I used to go to an old school barber shop with the striped pole, containers of blue Barbicide jammed with combs, and lots of kitschy sports memorabilia. I loved that barber shop. And I loved my barber because he could tell that I was there to get my haircut and not to fill him in on everything that had happened over the last six weeks. When I got in the barber chair, it was all business. Our conversation consisted of, “Same as always?” to which I responded, “Yep.” I loved that.

While doing the research that led to the development of ADA Practice Transitions, we found a common theme: Dentists who had sold their practice frequently shared that they spent too much money with a broker – and felt they did not receive commensurate value.

We developed ADA Practice Transitions to focus on philosophy of care – matching dentists with a similar approach, for a more successful result – but we also wanted to give dentists a more cost-effective option. We designed our service to deliver tremendous value in a manner that was less expensive than the other options, sometimes by a lot.

ADA Practice Transitions (ADAPT) has been in pilot stage for several months now, but there are still many dentists who may not know what we do – and why we do it. ADAPT offers a new way of hiring an associate, finding a job, buying a practice, or selling.

Some wonder why such a service is necessary. And why now?

If you ask a dentist about “corporate dentistry,” you may get a strong reaction. Opinions range from “corporate dentistry is destroying the profession” to “corporate dentistry is ideal – it allows a dentist to focus on dentistry rather than running a business,” with many flavors in between.

In particular, I have heard a number of established dentists lament how many new graduates choose the corporate dentistry route for their first job. Whenever I encounter someone who is disappointed with a new graduate’s choice outside of independent dentistry, I often have the following conversation:

Whether you are hiring someone or looking to be hired, an interview is the traditional way to assess whether or not a person or situation is a good fit. At ADA Practice Transitions, the interview is typically the first time that two dentists get to discuss their goals and weigh how strong a potential match may be.

Anything with high stakes – such as a practice transition – merits some preparation. Don’t go into an interview cold. Instead, keep these tips in mind when preparing for and managing an interview.