Topic · Research area
Ownership Trends
Longitudinal analysis of dentist-owner share, generational succession patterns, retirement-wave timing, and the structural shift toward group practice and non-owner employment.
Methodology approach
ADA HPI workforce surveys are the primary input, anchored to ADA News reporting and supplemented with cross-source verification against state dental board licensure data where available.
Publications on this topic
Baseline Report · April 26, 2026
The State of Dental Practice Values: 2026 Baseline Report
Synthesis of publicly available data from ADA HPI, FOCUS Investment Banking, TUSK Practice Sales, and continuous monitoring of 100+ online dental industry sources establishing baseline benchmarks for dental practice valuations in 2026: ownership trends, the retirement wave, DSO consolidation, and what separates premium from discounted transitions.
Baseline Report · May 15, 2026
The State of Private Practice 2026
Inaugural baseline characterizing the U.S. dental private-practice sector for 2026, anchored on seventeen federal, state, public-company, and academic data sources. Quantifies the retirement wave (41,749 dentists hold an active NPI but no longer practice per HRSA AHRF cross-validated with ACS PUMS 2023), the financing concentration in the SBA-guaranteed share (Live Oak 31.6 percent of dental dollar volume FY2020 to partial-FY2026), and DSO consolidation pressure honestly scoped against the peer-reviewed Nasseh evidence (PE-affiliated practices 1.6 percent in 2015 to 3.0 percent in 2021). Includes a structured 78-event dental-platform transaction tracker built by Private Practice Research and the SEC-disclosed economics of Dentalcorp Holdings as a public-comp anchor.
Baseline Report · May 1, 2026
The Complete Dental Practice Transition Decision Framework
Pillar reference framework for U.S. dental practice transitions. Defines and compares the four primary transition paths (DSO sale, internal/associate sale, partnership buy-in, phased external sale) across six decision dimensions, presents four worked examples with realized-value ranges, identifies six circumstances under which the standard framework breaks down, and answers the five most-asked transition questions. Anchored to ADA HPI, BizBuySell, ROI Corporation, Baker Tilly, Dental Economics, and AGD source data.
Longitudinal Brief · May 1, 2026
How Dental Practices Are Valued in 2026: A Framework for Practice Owners
Pillar reference framework for U.S. dental practice valuation. Introduces the PPR Multiple-Decoder Framework, a four-quadrant decision matrix that determines which of three valuation methods (collections multiple, SDE multiple, EBITDA multiple) applies to a practice based on EBITDA size and buyer type. Walks the framework end-to-end with worked examples across all four quadrants, source-cited multiple ranges by tier, and original critique of what these multiples do not capture about deal economics. Built from a synthesis of twelve named broker and industry sources active in the 2026 dental sale market.
Longitudinal Brief · May 17, 2026
Internal Sales: Associate Buy-In Mechanics and Where They Fail
A structured framework for evaluating dental associate buy-in transactions, identifying the five most common failure modes (mispriced minority, financing-structure mismatch, owner exit timeline conflict, production-share misalignment, succession-incompetence misread), and applying the PPR Buy-In Failure Mode Decision Tree to surface early-warning signals 18 to 24 months before transaction collapse.
Longitudinal Brief · May 12, 2026
Partnership Buy-Ins: Why Most Are Mispriced
A reconciliation framework for pricing dental partnership buy-ins. Documents the 5 mispricing archetypes (wrong-method-mix, financing-structure mismatch, timing-conflict, production-share misalignment, succession-incompetence misread) and provides a 4-step methodology for calculating a fair partnership share by reconciling income-approach and market-approach valuations on the same practice.