practice transitions
The
Hidden
Cost of
Bad Advice
Y
by Richard V. Lyschik, DDS, FAGD
oung doctors can maximize their chances for success
by learning the benefits of practice ownership as compared to being an associate. Remember, it’s not what
you earn, it’s what you keep! All it takes is a little business sense
and access to the right information.
“You can’t judge a book by its cover” is a well-known adage
warning the unwary to look deeper into an advisor’s hidden
agenda before buying into their advice. For advice to be constructive and meaningful, time must first be spent learning more
about you and your objectives before it is given. If this process
is skipped, then most of the advice you receive will either be
inappropriate or simply bad. And let’s not forget, free advice is
often worth exactly what you pay for it!
For example, some dental students are being told that the value
of dental practices is dropping because there are more sellers
than purchasers coming into the marketplace. This is only true
for certain locations. In rural areas, there are fewer purchasers,
22 NORTH TEXAS DENTISTRY | www.northtexasdentistry.com
so the more rural practices that come up for sale, the lower the
prices will go. However, each practice in highly desirable metro
areas may have 10 to 20 or more prospective purchasers, so
prices will remain high. Therefore, this claim of falling dental
practice prices is extremely misleading.
There are many young dentists who have lost out on great practice opportunities in these highly desirable areas because they
were told by their uninformed advisors that a practice was priced
too high. These same practices were then purchased by other
dentists who understood that any difference of opinion relating
to the purchase price paled when compared to having the right
practice in the right area for the next 30 or 35 years. The dentist
who passed on buying the practice would, more often than not,
continue wandering from office to office for years thereafter,
looking for a great “deal,” while losing tens to even hundreds of
thousands of dollars in potential annual income that could have
been earned through owning that practice in the prime location
that they were advised was priced too high.