DSO Ready

Started in 1968, AFTCO is the oldest and largest national dental practice transition company in the United States, with over $2B in dental practice sales. This experience has helped us to gain a unique and valuable insight on how to get the highest price possible for our clients through the sale of their dental practices to both professional and commercial purchasers.

Recently the dental industry has experienced the rapid expansion of commercial Dental Support Groups (“DSOs”). These groups all have different formulas for valuing dental practices and payment structures that, suffice to say, do not favor the practice owner at all. Through sophisticated models involving illusion and confusion, DSOs are taking advantage of dentists and their uninformed advisors and paying considerably less than fair market value for those practices. As a result, many dentists are selling their practice directly to a DSO and losing hundreds of thousands, and in some cases, millions of dollars in the process.

Now more than ever, practice owners are in need of knowledgeable representation with the experience needed to bring competition and higher practice valuations into the equation. AFTCO’s leadership position in the dental market has allowed us to gained a unique understanding of the various DSOs and their pricing models. All DSOs are not the same nor do they follow the same model when valuing a practice.

DSOs want a practice owner to believe that all pricing models are basically the same and that the seller can deal direct with the DSO for the sale of their practice. The DSO’s objective is to eliminate competitive bidding for that practice and, as a result, the seller ends up accepting a much lower price for his/her practice. Sadly, many sellers will focus on saving a broker fee and sell their practice direct to a DSO, losing a lot of money as a result.

When a dentist individually tries to sell to a DSO it can quickly become a David versus Goliath scenario. The DSOs retain a full staff of acquisition specialists, accountants, and attorneys who have been through the complex acquisition process hundreds of times. Now match that against an inexperienced practice owner and his/her attorney and accountant, trying to contend with the intricacies of selling a practice to a DSO for the first time.

If you wish to be the victor rather than the victim in this intricate and complex process, then you need the AFTCO advantage. AFTCO works with virtually all of the new and existing DSOs and we create a competitive market for our selling clients that results in much higher selling prices. AFTCO is familiar with all DSO pricing models and understands how to present your practice in the most favorable light. AFTCO will present your practice to several of the most appropriate DSOs (instead of just one DSO that may or maybe not the best buyer for your practice) and create a competitive environment for the sale/purchase of your practice.

The choice is yours, you can try to go it alone and potentially lose a lot of money, or you can use our experience and knowledge to help you realize the greatest value for your practice. It’s time for you to get the AFTCO advantage working for you by calling 800-232-3826.