A mid-tier resin printer with a wash-and-cure station runs $3-8K. That's the cheapest piece of digital equipment in dentistry by an order of magnitude, which is exactly why the ROI question gets answered badly. The machine is cheap. The real question is whether your volume justifies the labor.
A standalone intraoral scanner costs $20-40K installed. A full chairside system - scanner, mill, sintering furnace, blocks - runs $150-200K. Vendors pitch them as one decision. They aren't. The right call comes down to one number: how many crowns you seat per month. This question keeps showing up
COGS Percentage: Specialty vs General Practice: ADA HPI benchmark data and what it means for your practice.
Dental Practice Overhead by State 2026: ADA HPI benchmark data and what it means for your practice.
Summer Slowdown in Dental Practices: What Causes It and How to Fix It: ADA HPI seasonal benchmark data and what top practices do differently.
Whether the non-compete in your associate contract actually holds up depends almost entirely on which state you're in. The clause itself reads the same everywhere. The enforcement doesn't. The three buckets A few states void non-competes outright for most employees: California, North Dakota, and Oklahoma have
Net Promoter Score is one question: "How likely are you to recommend this practice to a friend, 0 to 10?" Score it by taking the percentage who answer 9 or 10 (promoters) and subtracting the percentage who answer 0 through 6 (detractors). The 7s and 8s don'
A productive dental operatory generates $200,000 to $350,000 in collected revenue per year, averaged across every equipped chair in the practice, hygiene included. Below $150,000 per chair, something specific is broken: scheduling, fees, or write-offs. The math Annual collections divided by equipped operatories. A $1M practice with
The benchmark: a well-run practice collects 98% or more of net production. Between 96% and 98% you're leaving real money on the table. Below 96%, you have a systems problem, not a patient problem. Measure against net, not gross Collections divided by gross production is a nearly useless
A sustainable new patient acquisition cost for a general dental practice is $150 to $300. Referral-heavy practices get under $100. Practices buying most of their growth through Google Ads in a crowded metro often pay $400 to $600 per patient, and above $500 the return usually goes negative. How to
Most associate buy-ins sell a 20% to 49% stake in the first tranche, with a path to 50/50 or full succession written into the agreement. The structure matters more than the headline percentage. Here's how the pieces usually fit. Valuation basis Two common methods: a percentage of
Your insurance aging report is the fastest read on whether your billing is healthy or quietly bleeding. Most PMS systems bucket outstanding claims into 0-30, 31-60, 61-90, and 90+ days. Here's what good looks like in each bucket, and what to do when yours doesn't match.
Practice Management
Most staffing questions in a dental office get argued by feel. Front desk staffing shouldn't be one of them, because the math is simple: it's a ratio of admin capacity to patient flow, and when it's off you can see it in your recall
Knowledge Base
July 2026 dental practice operating data: median collections $852,663, top quartile $1,196,002, overhead 61.9%, hygienist wage $48.93/hr.
Practice Management
Patient communication software runs $300 to $600 a month for a single location. Weave and Solutionreach sit at the top of that range, NexHealth and RevenueWell land in the middle, and stripped-down reminder tools can come in under $250. Most vendors add a setup fee of $250 to $1,000
Practice Management
Pearl, Overjet, and Denti.AI all sell the same core promise: the software flags decay, calculus, and bone loss on radiographs, the patient sees the overlay, and case acceptance goes up. Vendors report 15-30% lifts in diagnosed treatment. Here's what the math looks like per operatory, and where
Financial Strategy
Every PPO exit conversation starts with the same fear: "I'll lose 30% of my patients and my collections will crater." Here's what the numbers actually look like when practices drop a plan, and why the collections math is usually better than the fear. Start
Financial Strategy
Ask most practice owners what their PPO reimbursement rate is and you'll get a shrug or a guess. That guess is usually high. If you don't know the real number per plan, you're negotiating blind and probably subsidizing your worst contracts with your best
Financial Strategy
Your write-off percentage is the share of your fee schedule you give away to stay in network. Most PPO-heavy practices run 20-35%. Past 40%, you're working Fridays for the insurance company. How to calculate it Pull gross production at your full fee schedule and total contractual adjustments for
seo-landing
California ppo exit strategy benchmarks for 2026. Operator-focused analysis + free calculator.
Practice Management
Most dental practice sales in 2026 are bank-funded. Practice lenders will finance 100% of a healthy practice's purchase price, which is why full seller financing is rare. Where seller financing actually shows up is as a partial note: the seller carries 10% to 30% of the price, and
Practice Management
Buying a dental practice is probably the largest check you'll ever write. Most deals in 2026 are closing between $500K and $1.2M for a solo GP office, and the difference between a good buy and a five-year headache usually comes down to what you verify in the
Practice Management
The headline number a DSO quotes you is not what shows up at closing. A typical deal pays 60 to 80 percent in cash at close, with the remaining 20 to 40 percent split between an earnout and rollover equity. The earnout is the part most sellers understand least, and
Practice Management
Most dentists get their first DSO letter around year 10 of ownership. The right answer isn't yes or no. It's a checklist, because the same offer that's smart at 58 with no associate is a mistake at 45 with a growing practice. Here'