When a dental practice changes ownership, the impact extends beyond the business itself. It can reshape how dentists work, how decisions are made, and how patient care is delivered. After 21 years as a dental associate in practices across the East Coast and the Midwest, I experienced this firsthand.
The last practice I worked in was sold to a corporate entity, an experience that ultimately pushed me to become a practice owner myself. That experience is not unique. In the third quarter of 2026 alone, dentistry saw 51 transactions, accounting for 49 percent of all physician medical group mergers and acquisitions, according to data by Levin Associates, a Senior Care and Healthcare M&A insights firm.
The American Dental Association's Health Policy Institute reports that 16 percent of U.S. dentists were affiliated with a dental support organization in 2024. A separate study found private equity affiliation roughly doubled from 6.6 percent in 2015 to 12.8 percent in 2021. The cumulative share is not yet a majority.
But the trend is unmistakable, and the question patients should be asking is the same: Who owns the office they walk into, and does it change the care they receive? I believe it often does, and not for the better. When a corporate entity owns a practice, the financial priorities of the investor sit somewhere above the clinical judgment of the dentist.
That is not a conspiracy. It is a structural reality. Investors expect returns.
Returns come from procedures, volume, and efficiency. A dentist employed by that structure may find their treatment recommendations scrutinized against a financial target rather than a clinical one. The dentists I know who work in corporate settings describe low morale and high turnover.
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