Purchasing a practice in a rural area

[Hello812]

Hello,

I am looking to purchase my first practice. I've been looking in the local suburbs where I am - generally the populations are 40-60,000. Now, i've seen a practice or two for sale in more rural areas where the population is about 5-10,000 that were producing similar numbers.

Has anyone had experience purchasing an existing practice in a rural area?

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[allantois]

You might be better served over at Dentaltown.

 

[free99]

No experience myself, but if you post more specifics others may be able to chime in. We have a handful of practicing dentists who frequent the forum. Just brainstorming but these are some things you may want to share to get some advice: cost of practice, production, collection rate, average income of town, proximity to closest dentists, active patient count, procedures the owner dentist does/what is referred, equipment age, real estate rental cost, seller staying on or leaving, insurance or ffs, overhead %, etc.

 

[Cold Front]

Hello,

I am looking to purchase my first practice. I've been looking in the local suburbs where I am - generally the populations are 40-60,000. Now, i've seen a practice or two for sale in more rural areas where the population is about 5-10,000 that were producing similar numbers.

Has anyone had experience purchasing an existing practice in a rural area?

From my experience, the practices in rural areas don't just serve the town where they are located at, but also surrounding rural areas within 20-30 miles radius. Hence why their production numbers are relatively good or high.

The #1 problem for a young dentist working/practicing in rural areas is... Boredom! So be sure you are going to be ok with that or find something to compensate for it before you pull the trigger.

 

[DrJeff]

Being a dentist in what is considered a rural area, I will tell you that personally I LOVE it, but at the same time it's not for everyone.

In a rural practice, one tends to do more procedures themselves, and rely less on specialists (sure I still refer out ALL of ortho and a good chunk of oral surgery cases that I don't feel like doing) and the the overall "patient vibe" tends to be more relaxed that when I was practicing in "surburbia" right after my residency. When you live in a rural area, you're generally used to having to travel a bit to get to things, travel that people who aren't used to the "rural" lifestyle may think is a major issue, but if you're accustomed to the rural way, you don't think twice about having to drive 10,15,25+ miles to get to something.

As Cold Front correctly stated, in a rural practice you tend to draw patients from not just 1 town, or portion of a town, but from multiple towns in the general area. For example, my practice's drawing area involves patients from about a dozen towns in about a 20 mile diameter area that actually encompasses 3 states, I also don't have to advertise very much, especially compared to my colleagues in larger populated areas, and I have found that my local dental community tends to be much more relaxed and less cut throat than in some areas with higher dentist densities.

A rural practice won't be for everyone, but it certainly can be an enjoyable and lucrative type of practice to have and can provide a nice lifestyle and community to live in and raise a family in as well

 

[gn4]

Being a dentist in what is considered a rural area, I will tell you that personally I LOVE it, but at the same time it's not for everyone.

In a rural practice, one tends to do more procedures themselves, and rely less on specialists (sure I still refer out ALL of ortho and a good chunk of oral surgery cases that I don't feel like doing) and the the overall "patient vibe" tends to be more relaxed that when I was practicing in "surburbia" right after my residency. When you live in a rural area, you're generally used to having to travel a bit to get to things, travel that people who aren't used to the "rural" lifestyle may think is a major issue, but if you're accustomed to the rural way, you don't think twice about having to drive 10,15,25+ miles to get to something.

As Cold Front correctly stated, in a rural practice you tend to draw patients from not just 1 town, or portion of a town, but from multiple towns in the general area. For example, my practice's drawing area involves patients from about a dozen towns in about a 20 mile diameter area that actually encompasses 3 states, I also don't have to advertise very much, especially compared to my colleagues in larger populated areas, and I have found that my local dental community tends to be much more relaxed and less cut throat than in some areas with higher dentist densities.

A rural practice won't be for everyone, but it certainly can be an enjoyable and lucrative type of practice to have and can provide a nice lifestyle and community to live in and raise a family in as well

can a specialist such as OMFS survive in a rural area? don't they need to be in areas with a lot of general dentists in order to get referrals?

 

[DrJeff]

can a specialist such as OMFS survive in a rural area? don't they need to be in areas with a lot of general dentists in order to get referrals?

There are 2 OMFS practices in my area who I refer 2 regularly - one is a solo practitioner who has 2 offices (one in CT and one in MA - they're about 20 miles apart and both are in rural areas and/or an old Mill town that aren't exactly thriving booming economically) and the other is a multi OMFS multi location practice with about a half dozen locations all over CT (none of them in what would be considered "affluent" areas of CT) - Neither of those OMFS practices are struggling

Ortho wise, I have 3 local practices that I refer to. All are solo practitioners with between 2 to 4 offices, and one of them has offices in both CT and MA - they're not struggling either

Specialists can also thrive in rural areas, often though they're spending their work weeks in different offices as opposed to driving to the same office each day