5 Essential Metrics You Need Before Buying a Practice With Dr. Sonny Spera
In this interview, Dr. Drew Byrnes sits down with Dr. Sonny Spera to talk about practice transition and acquisition. Sonny has years of experience buying FFS practices and making them successful. He shares:
Number of active patients (those that have been in in the last 12-18 months)
Patient demographics- numbers of patients in zip codes and age of patients
NP per month (need this over 3-4 years)- what’s the protocol for NP? What’s being done at that appt? What’s being done at hyg appt? Whats the xray policy? (please please please double check this on chart audit)
Fee schedule- along with this are any insurance plans practice participates with, along with the number of patients in those plans- also collection policies for FFS and insurance plan patients. Any adjustments? Remember you should already have breakdowns for what is HYG revenue and what is DR revenue, along with procedure breakdowns and which provider is producing what revenues.
Schedules- look at dr and hyg schedule for weeks at a time. Office hours and staff on hand during those hours..what’s the typical adult prophy scheduled time? Are they doing any perio therapy? What about pedo? (remember should have demographics on how many children are actually being seen and hopefully, the procedures being done on children- child prophy, child restorations, SSC etc…)
In researching this you will need to visit the site and discuss look at the books. Do a random chart audit. Check what’s been billed and what’s been collected.
The first five things can get you very far on your own. You will need great counsel, CPA and attorney before you sign ANYTHING but when evaluating you have to do your homework, visit the site, review the processes, speak to the dentist, if possible speak with the staff see if their stories are in agreement. Ask lots of questions.. Why are you selling? What are your plans? Do you want to continue in dentistry? Do you want to stay on? What advice would you give the new dentist?(many dentists will freely share their misgivings- “I didn’t push too much crown and bridge or I referred out any difficult dentures, root canals. “ Etc… or sometimes they will tell you things about staff “I should’ve gotten rid of Jane a long time ago, but I knew I was retiring so I let her do what she wanted”.
Do you have a FFS practice? Would you like to be interviewed? Fill out the FFS Stories request form here:
https://goo.gl/forms/7TaUF9Nqi49l1RFF2
Episode resources:
Dental Membership Direct
Dental Financing Direct
Dental Membership Master Course with Dr. Chris Phelps