ADAPT Blog

Maybe COVID was the last straw. Perhaps you’re tired of spending sunny days at the office rather than on the golf course. Maybe a health concern now makes practicing difficult, or even impossible.

No matter what the reason, you’re ready to retire ASAP, but you don’t want to leave your patients in the lurch.

And you don’t quite want to sell, not yet. You might need the health insurance until you qualify for Medicare. Or maybe you still want to consult and train your replacement, but simply can’t do the hands-on work any longer.

As dentists begin their practice transitions, nearly all have the same question on their minds: how long do you think this is going to take?

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.

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.

We hear lots of questions about managing staff during practice transitions, so we made it the focus of last week’s ADA Practice Transitions Coffee Talk webinar.

Dr. Betsy Shapiro, ADA Director of Practice Management and the ADA Center for Professional Success, joined ADAPT’s Dr. Suzanne Ebert, Vice President of Dental Practice & Relationship Management, for this hour-long conversation. The two shared their experiences with managing staff through their own practice transitions, as well as lessons learned from working with other dentists.

I have talked to many dentists over the last several weeks and noticed that recent conversations have taken on a new tone as we all navigate the COVID-19 situation.

Last week we kicked off new topics for the ADA Practice Transitions Coffee Talk webinar series with some fantastic advice from a pair of dental CPAs. Chris VanStraten and Andy McCarty of Baker Tilly, founding member of ADCPA, walked us through some of the ways that COVID-19 is changing dental practice sales.

During the webinar, Chris and Andy explored:

Now is a great time to have some important conversations with your family about how your career affects your collective future. Most of you have never been allowed this kind of focused time to evaluate your true priorities as a family.  

This is part of the “What Went Wrong Wednesdays” series, in which we explore common problems of practice transitions – and offer tips to help you avoid them.

Retirement should be a well thought-out event that you take ownership of. To truly take control of your future, retirement planning should start years – even decades – before you anticipate finishing your career.

Here are two scenarios that illustrate what happened when a doctor did not completely think through their exit plans, along with suggestions to help you avoid the same fate.

This is part of the “What Went Wrong Wednesdays” series, in which we explore common problems of practice transitions – and offer tips to help you avoid them.

At ADA Practice Transitions, we place a heavy emphasis on making sure incoming doctors share a similar philosophy of care as the practice owner. While it may not be immediately apparent, having a shared approach is critical to the success of your future career or retirement plan, even if you are planning to sell and walk away.