Knowledge Base
November 2026 Benchmarking Report: The Practice Market Index
November 2026 Practice Market Index: the median dental practice for sale collects $996,000 (n=857).
Signal Team
Healthcare operators and analysts covering the business side of dentistry. Benchmarks from ADA HPI, BLS, and Dental Economics. Dental Intelligence. No Noise.
Practice Management
Credentialing Runs 38 to 142 Days. Start With the Slowest
A credentialing delay never shows up as a line item. There's no invoice, no vendor, no entry in the P&L called "ninety days of an empty operatory." That's exactly why it's the most expensive unmeasured event in a dental practice:
Industry Trends
DSO IT Spend Runs 2.4% of Collections. 1.5% Is Enough
On a practice collecting $1 million a year, the difference between an IT budget of 2.4% of collections and one of 1.5% is $9,000 a year, every year, forever, and almost none of it shows up in production. That $9,000 is the quietest line in your
Dental Economics
Why 98% Collections Still Leaves $60K on the Table
A practice running 98% collections on $1.25 million of production is quietly losing about $60,000 a year, and the ratio itself is the reason nobody goes looking for it. That is roughly 28% of the $215,320 the average general dentist earned in 2025, according to ADA Health
Financial Strategy
Buying Your Building vs Leasing: The Operator Math
A $195,000 down payment is the largest single check most practice owners will ever write, and in year one that building will hand back roughly $16,000, none of it in cash. That isn't a scandal. It's just arithmetic almost nobody runs before the broker&
Dental Economics
Card Processing Fees Are Quietly Taking 2% of Your Collections
A practice collecting $1 million a year with 80% of that money arriving across a card terminal hands its processor roughly $27,040 annually. Run the same volume at the rate the ADA says practices should be targeting, 2.1% to 2.2%, and the bill drops to about $17,
Financial Strategy
Third-Party Patient Financing: The Real Cost Per Case
Finance $360,000 of treatment a year on a 10% merchant plan and you've handed the lender $36,000 before the lab invoice even arrives. Run the identical cases through a 1.9% plan and the bill is $6,840. Same chairs, same clinicians, same patients saying yes.
Financial Strategy
What a Dental Practice Loan Actually Costs in 2026
A median SBA dental acquisition loan in 2026 is $853,000, and at today's pricing it will take $10,689 out of your practice every month for ten years before you pay yourself a dime. That's the number that matters, and almost nobody shops for it.
staffing
Hygienist Wages Rose Again in 2026. Here Is What It Costs You.
A practice collecting $1.19 million this year is handing roughly $10,800 of margin to its payroll that it did not hand over in January 2021, and not one person on staff got rich in the process. That is five years of dental economics compressed into a single number,
Industry Trends
What Multiple Are Buyers Actually Paying for Dental Practices in 2026?
Two general practices can hand a buyer the same $1 million of adjusted EBITDA and walk away $3 million apart at closing. Neither one is better run than the other. One is simply classified as a platform and the other as an add-on, and that classification was decided long before
Industry Trends
Dental Practice Valuation Multiples in 2026
The same practice can fetch $1,690,000 or $2,242,500 from the same buyer in the same week, and the difference has nothing to do with the multiple. It comes down to four lines in a recast spreadsheet that most sellers never read closely, and the buyer'
staffing
Payroll as a Percentage of Collections: The Benchmark Most Practices Skip
Six points of payroll on a $1 million practice is $60,000 a year. That is the difference between a practice that buys its own chair and one that finances it, and most owners cannot tell you within three points where their payroll ratio sat last month. Our view: a