A book by Ryan Smith, DDS
Coming soonBuy the Practice, Not the Problems
How to Find, Evaluate, Finance, and Take Over the Right Dental Practice
A practice can look great on paper and still be the wrong practice for you. Know what you’re buying before it becomes your problem.
Release date, formats, and pricing to be announced.
- Written for
- Practice buyers
- Chapters in the manuscript
- 54
- Parts
- 9
- By
- Ryan Smith, DDS
Inside the book
A clear process for a consequential decision.
Buying a practice means taking responsibility for its people, patients, cash flow, and problems. Ryan walks through the decisions behind the deal, drawing on acquisitions that worked, mistakes that stayed with him, and the questions he wishes he had asked sooner.
Start before your first listing, or return to the stage you’re in: screening a deal, working through diligence, preparing to close, or finding your footing as the new owner.
Choose the life before the listing
Define your buying criteria, financial readiness, schedule, and clinical fit before a practice catches your attention.
Find and screen opportunities
Build a focused search, work with brokers, approach owners, and recognize a poor fit before it takes over your calendar.
Test the business you can operate
Separate production from cash. Build a buyer’s view of earnings, debt, working capital, and what happens if the transition is harder than expected.
Look behind the sales packet
Examine the patients, dentistry, team, payer relationships, facility, technology, and seller dependencies that the headline numbers cannot explain.
Negotiate with your eyes open
Connect price, financing, diligence findings, and contract questions. Know when to proceed, renegotiate, pause, or walk away.
Be ready for Monday morning
Plan the closing, revenue handoff, and first 100 days. Protect patient trust, team relationships, and cash while you learn the practice.
The reading journey
From the first question to the first 100 days.
9 parts. 54 chapters. Follow the whole acquisition, including what happens after the keys are yours.
Explore the current manuscript below. Final chapter titles and publication details may change before release.
Know Why You Are BuyingChapters 1–5
- Do You Want Ownership, or Relief From Your Job?
- Write Your Buyer’s Thesis Before You See a Listing
- The Practice Has to Fit Your Life
- Are You Financially Ready?
- Build a Deal Team, and Know Who They Represent
Find Deals Worth Looking AtChapters 6–10
- Map the Search Before the Market Distracts You
- Become the Buyer Brokers Call Back
- Go Off-Market Without Being Weird
- Read the Practice Profile Like a Buyer
- The Ten-Minute Deal Screen
Make the Numbers Tell the TruthChapters 11–16
- Production Is Not Cash
- Build the Buyer’s P&L
- The Operating Numbers That Matter
- Valuation Is a Range, Not a Verdict
- Run the Downside Before You Run the Deal
- Working Capital: Don’t Give the Same Dollar Two Jobs
See the Practice Behind the PacketChapters 17–25
- Walk It Like a Patient
- Can You Reproduce the Seller’s Dentistry?
- Audit the Charts, Not Just the Reports
- Are Those Patients, and That Hygiene Engine, Real?
- Payers, Fee Schedules, and Credentialing Risk
- The Team Is an Asset, and a Risk
- Equipment, Software, Data, and Cybersecurity
- The Seller: Clean Break, Work-Back, or Problem?
- Lease, Building, and Facility
Offer Without Losing Your ExitChapters 26–31
- Set the Price, Terms, and Walk-Away Point
- The LOI: Serious Without Getting Trapped
- Negotiate the Whole Deal
- Seller Financing, Holdbacks, and Shared Risk
- A/R, Patient Credits, Prepaid Care, and Work in Progress
- One Price, Two Tax Outcomes
Trust, Then VerifyChapters 32–39
- Run Due Diligence
- Prove the Revenue
- Find the Costs and Liabilities That Missed the Packet
- Clinical, Compliance, and Regulatory Diligence
- People, Contracts, and Employment Risk
- Loan Approval Does Not Mean a Good Loan
- Turn Findings Into Deal Decisions
- The Purchase Agreement: Who Owns the Bad Surprise?
Turn a Deal Into Day OneChapters 40–44
- Run the Closing Countdown
- Entity, EIN, NPI, Licenses, and Insurance
- Credentialing Is a Revenue Workstream
- Be Able to Treat, Bill, Collect, and Pay People Monday Morning
- Tell the Team, Patients, Referrers, and Then Wire Safely
Lead the First 100 DaysChapters 45–52
- The First Team Meeting Sets the Tone
- Be the Trusted Leader Before the Change Agent
- Keep the People Who Keep the Practice Running
- Protect Patient Trust Through the Handoff
- Manage a Seller Who Stays
- Protect Cash Every Week
- The Slow Yes: Fix What Is Urgent and Earn the Right to Grow
- Owner Isolation, Family Stress, and Months 4–12
Build the Practice You Meant to BuyChapters 53–54
- When the Acquisition Underperforms
- Buy-Ins, Partnerships, and the Next Practice
An owner’s perspective
Understand the problems well enough to decide whether they belong in your life.
Dentists considering their first practice, buyers evaluating an active deal, and owners preparing for another acquisition.
Put the reading to work
16
Buyer worksheets.
Turn a good question into something you can check, compare, and act on.
The manuscript includes practical worksheets, a continuing fictional acquisition example, and a glossary. The tools give you a place to record evidence, unanswered questions, responsibilities, and your next decision.
- Buyer thesis
- Search and deal screen
- Buyer operating model
- Diligence issue record
- Closing countdown and operating test
- First hundred days and weekly review
See all 16 worksheets
- Buyer thesis
- Household and schedule agreement
- Financial readiness
- Adviser responsibilities
- Search and deal screen
- Revenue evidence and transfer
- Buyer operating model
- Operating evidence and downside
- Sources and uses
- Thirteen week cash forecast
- Practice visit and clinical transfer
- Offer and loan comparison
- Diligence issue record
- Payer handoff record
- Closing countdown and operating test
- First hundred days and weekly review
Printable PDF and editable Word toolkit. Free to access, with no login or code.
Meet the author
Ryan Smith, DDS
Ryan Smith, DDS is a dentist, dental influencer, author and business educator who has owned and managed more than 20 dental practices. His content draws on firsthand experience in practice ownership, leadership and the business of dentistry. He has 100,000+ YouTube subscribers and tens of thousands of followers across other social platforms and writes The Dental Grind newsletter.
Ryan brings the successes and mistakes of practice ownership to the page. The aim is to help you ask better questions, work effectively with your advisers, and make a buying decision you can explain.
Before you read
A few good questions.
When can I buy the book?
The book is coming soon. A release date and purchase link have not been announced. Follow The Dental Grind for book updates; this page will link to the retailer when the book is available.
Is it written for first-time buyers?
Yes. It starts with the ownership decision and follows the purchase through the first 100 days. Dentists already evaluating a deal and owners considering another practice can also use the sections relevant to their next decision.
Do I need to enroll in the Acquisition course?
No. The book is designed to stand on its own. The companion reader page offers the buyer worksheets as a printable PDF and editable Word file, with no signup required. The Practice Acquisition course is a separate, forthcoming learning option; course enrollment is not included with the book.
What formats and price will be available?
Final formats, pricing, and publication details will be announced closer to release.
A separate learning option · Coming soon
Practice Acquisition course
Explore the course curriculum if you prefer a lesson-by-lesson approach to finding, buying, and taking over a practice.
Coming soon
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