The gap
Two identical practices, two very different numbers
Same collections. Same chairs. Same patients walking through the door. One sells for meaningfully more, and the difference usually has nothing to do with dentistry.
Every buyer is quietly asking one question: does this practice work when the owner isn’t in it? Anything that only runs because you’re standing there gets priced in, every time.
Dr. A’s practice
Runs on the doctor
Buyers discount what leaves with you
Dr. B’s practice
Runs on its own
Buyers pay a premium for structure
Profit vs. value
Making good money and being worth a lot are two different things
A practice can pay you very well for years and still sell for less than you’d expect. They’re built differently.
Profit
Pays you now
What the practice pays you this year: production, collections, take-home. You already manage this well.
Value
Pays you once
What someone else will pay for the practice later. Built from structure, team, and systems, in the years before a sale.
The good part: the gap between the two is yours to close, and closing it doesn’t require selling anything or changing your timeline. The same work that makes a practice worth more to a buyer also makes it a better practice to own in the meantime: fewer bottlenecks, a stronger team, and a business that doesn’t need you in the building to have a good week.
What actually moves the number
These are the things a buyer looks for, and every one of them is something you can build on purpose.
It runs without you
A strong associate and hygiene bench means production doesn’t depend on you being chairside every day.
The systems are written down
Scheduling, hygiene recall, case presentation, billing, collections. Documented, and actually followed.
Patients belong to the practice
Relationships sit with the whole care team and the brand, not only with the owner-doctor.
There’s a leadership bench
An office manager, a lead hygienist, a lead assistant. Decisions don’t bottleneck at you.
The numbers are clean and current
Production, collections, hygiene %, case acceptance, chair utilization. Tracked, and acted on.
You have more than one way out
DSO, private buyer, partner buy-in, associate buy-in. Options exist when the value transfers with the practice.
See your number, and your gap
Eight questions. About two minutes, and nothing you need to look up.
We use this to send your valuation and follow up once. No lists, and we don’t sell your details on.
Your practice valuation
Here’s what your practice is worth today.
It’s a range, because what a practice sells for depends on who buys it and how it runs without you.
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Individual sale
Sold to an associate, a partner, or another dentist
Corporate or DSO sale
Sold to a group or private equity buyer
An individual buyer, an associate, partner, or another dentist, is buying a practice to work in. They pay for your patients and your chairs.
A corporate or DSO buyer is buying a business that produces without its owner. That’s what the premium at the high end pays for.
Your marker shows how much of that range is available to you, based on your answers about how the practice runs without you. A practice built around its owner is a lifestyle practice, and there’s nothing wrong with that: it’s the top of what an individual buyer pays.
Why you sit where you sit
Your transferability score: how much of the practice a buyer can actually take over. It’s what sets your position on the range above.
This number can move. That’s our job.
We help dentists move up this range, and that work starts years before it’s time to sell. Book a call with Jeremiah, a Certified Exit Planning Advisor who works with dentists every day, and the planning starts now.
This calculator provides an estimate for educational purposes only. It is not a formal valuation, an appraisal, or a promise of any sale price or outcome. Actual practice value depends on many factors this tool does not capture. Core Advisors, Ltd. is a registered investment advisor. Please visit coreadvisors.com for important disclosures.
Increasing practice value is what our team does
Core Advisors works with dentists, and only with dentists. Accounting, tax, retirement, and investment strategy all sit under one roof, so your practice number and your personal number get planned by people who actually talk to each other.
The specific thing the team is built around is the subject of this page: growing what the practice is worth. Not only filing the return and reconciling the books, though that happens too. Working on the things a buyer will one day pay a premium for, in the years when you can still change them.
95%
of M&A professionals say the top reason deals fall apart is the owner overestimating what the business is worth. Knowing your real number early is the whole point of starting now.
Alliance of M&A Advisors, cited in the Exit Planning Institute’s From Successful to Significant white paper. Figure is for business owners generally, not dentists specifically.
80% to 90%
of a typical business owner’s net worth is tied up in the business. It’s the biggest asset most owners hold, and the one they’ve usually measured the least.
Exit Planning Institute, 5-4-3-2-1 white paper. Figure is for business owners generally, not dentists specifically.
The number is being built right now
Whether you’re selling in three years or fifteen, what you’ll be offered is being decided by how the practice runs this year. Two minutes will tell you where you stand.