FINANCING STRATEGY
When buying a dental practice, your financing strategy is a critical part of the process as well. So it is important to be prepared in advance. We will work with you by doing a preliminary assessment of your financial needs both personally and for your new practice. This means preparing financial projections, and reviewing your personal and business debts as well as your personal credit situation to determine the best financing strategy based upon your particular financial and credit situation. This may also entail consideration of the size and type of practice you want, related anticipated operating expenses, the new practice’s ability to cover the new debt associated with purchasing or starting the new practice.

DUE DILIGENCE
Next, it is important to evaluate the practice you are considering acquiring. This may entail an initial due diligence review of the proposed practice’s financials, tax returns, practice management procedures reports, or a site visit of the facility, interview of the selling dentist and employees, and a host of other due diligence check list items to answer critical questions at this point. Usually, the selling dentist or transition broker will require you so sign a non-disclosure agreement prior to providing the financials and active patient count and other related practice profile information for evaluation.

It will be important to review the asking price, gross receipts, the type of procedures being provided by the selling dentist and whether your dentistry will be sufficient to continue to produce at the same level as the selling dentist or better. It’s also important to assess whether the practice is growing or not. How many new patients is the practice attracting each month? If the preliminary review is positive and you decide to move forward, you may then want to have a practice valuation to determine an offering price for the practice.

PRACTICE VALUATION
A practice valuation differs from a due diligence review. It's similar to a home buyer obtaining an appraisal to determine the value of the home, versus an inspection report to determine the soundness of the home. They each serve different purposes. One helps you to know the value and how much you may want to offer; while the other lets you know more about the condition of the home and what improvements may be needed and when.

MAKE AN OFFER
At this point, it’s time to make an offer. We can assist you in preparing your offer. It is important to understand there are varying types of offers. Some are more binding than others. In some cases, the selling dentist may not be willing to commit to taking the practice off of the market unless the offer is legally binding on the part of the buyer and they may require a good faith deposit as well. So an offer to purchase may be used for this purpose. In other cases, the seller may accept a simple letter of intent that is not necessarily binding on the part of the seller or buyer, but outlines the primary terms of the purchase like the purchase price, the right to complete a due diligence review, financing approval timelines, etc.

SECURE FINANCING
After the offer to purchase or letter of intent has been accepted, the next step is to secure financing. We work with you to prepare the best financing strategy for your particular financial and credit situation.