01
The practice is treated as the plan
A practice is one illiquid, concentrated, buyer-dependent asset. Assuming its eventual sale funds retirement makes the whole plan contingent on a transaction that has not been valued, structured or tax-modeled.
For practice owners and associates
One lawsuit can take what you have built. So can one sale, done badly.
Dentistry gives you enormous earning power. Earning power alone does not translate into a protected future. Structure does. And the two events most likely to decide how yours ends are a claim you did not expect and a practice sale you only get one attempt at.
If this sounds familiar
You are not the first person to say any of this.
Nothing below is a diagnosis. It is the list of things people in your position say out loud once they stop performing confidence about it.
You own the practice, the building, or both, and you have never had anyone review how they are titled.
Your malpractice policy is current and you have never checked what sits above its limit.
The practice is the retirement plan, and nobody has valued it or modeled the sale.
You pay a great deal of tax and your CPA has never proposed anything for next year.
Your legal, tax, insurance and investment people have never been in the same conversation.
Where it usually goes wrong
Mechanisms, not scare stories.
Each of these is a way the instruments actually behave. None of them requires anybody to have done anything stupid, which is exactly why they are so common.
02
Personal and practice assets are not separated
Entity structure, titling and how the real estate is held decide what a claim can actually reach. Those decisions are usually made once, by whoever set up the practice, and never revisited as the balance sheet grows.
03
The sale’s tax treatment is decided before you negotiate it
How purchase price is allocated between goodwill, equipment and the entity changes what you keep by a wide margin, and it is settled at closing. Owners who bring that question to their CPA after the fact are filing, not planning.
04
Nobody has planned for not being in the chair
Production stops when you do. Disability coverage, overhead expense coverage and the practice’s own continuity provisions are three separate things, and most practices have one of them.
What we would actually do
The same five-layer process, weighted for you.
Every plan runs through all five layers of PILOT, in the same order, every time. What changes by audience is what each layer is actually looking for.
Portfolio Positioning
Build something outside the practice, so the plan is not one buyer away from working.
Income & Tax Strategy
Plan next year rather than file last year, and model the sale before it is negotiated rather than after.
Longevity & Life Event Stress Testing
Test the plan against a hand or a back that stops working before you meant to stop working, which is the risk this profession carries and rarely plans around.
Ownership & Control
Review entity structure, titling and how the real estate is held as one asset-protection question, drafted by the attorney, not just described.
Transfer of Risk
Separate what belongs to the practice from what belongs to you, and price what each gap would cost to close.
Greg wrote a book for exactly this
10 Costly Mistakes No One Warns Dentists About
“One Lawsuit Can Take Everything You’ve Built.”
It has its own site, with the book and a short assessment on it.
Plain answers
What dentists ask first.
Isn’t my malpractice policy enough protection?
It answers one category of claim up to a limit. It does not address what sits above that limit, what an unrelated liability could reach, or how your personal and practice assets are titled relative to each other. Those are legal-structure questions, and they are the reason the attorney and the planner here are the same conversation.
When should I start planning the practice sale?
Years before you intend to sell. The decisions that change what you keep (entity structure, how the price is allocated, whether real estate is inside or outside the deal) are either in place before closing or they are not available. After the close you are reporting a result.
I’m an associate, not an owner. Is this relevant?
Some of it. You have no practice to structure or sell, and the same exposure on titling, disability coverage, tax sequencing and estate documents. The asset-protection conversation is shorter; the retirement one is identical.
Start here
Start by finding out where you actually stand.
A Clarity Map Session is 30 minutes, costs nothing, and produces a written picture of your income, your future tax bill and your estate documents. Whether you hire us afterward is a separate conversation.
30 minutes · No cost · No obligation