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Frequently Asked Questions
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Scroll down to discover answers to some of the most commonly asked questions about SPP.
SPP stands for “Saving Private Practice.” SPP Dental Partners is a group of progressive dentists that are invested in the growth of their practice and the SPP Group. These Dentists have seen the trends and witnessed first-hand how DSO’s and corporate dentistry are consolidating the industry. Our mission is to help private practices compete with the DSO’s while benefiting from the value of a group.
As we join together as private practice owners, we become much more attractive to financial institutions that are seeking a consistent, diversified, cash-flowing, recession-resistant business in health care. Those institutions range from traditional banks, to private equity, to family offices looking for a consistent return. Those institutions have money to place in either an equity stake, or often, just seeking an interest rate. In the latter case, SPP would service the debt through cash flows.
First, we believe you will see immediate growth in the first couple years. Recent measurements by SPP illustrate that first-year practices (on average) had a 9% increase in collections, and a 26% increase in Net Operating Income. This was bolstered by a 23% decrease in Supply Spend and back-office support to run your practice much more efficiently. Essentially, with SPP you get a built-in consultant, an experienced marketing team, and a group of doctors incentivized to ensure your practice thrives.
Second, as a part of a collaborative organization, whereby every partner practice owns a piece of each other’s practice, there is a collective effort to support the group. Within the group, there are weekly clinical and business-related messages, monthly study clubs, a quarterly newsletter, semi-annual group meetings, and other annual partner appreciation events. There is also an active willingness to step in and support each practice however needed including shared personnel etc.
Lastly, looking at the partnership long-term, we are confident that both SPP, and your private practice will continue to grow in strength and in value. Because all of our partners own their own practices, SPP is in a much stronger position with owner partners, than with Dentists who are W2 employees. The combined value of your practice, plus your equity in SPP, will put you in a very strong position when you decide to stop practicing dentistry.
There are no expectations and no quotas to meet. Practices can stay flat each year if they choose to do that. We haven’t seen it (in fact, we’ve seen the opposite). There wouldn’t be anything required of the doctors. Every practice still maintains 100% clinical and business autonomy. We trust that owner Dentists will make the best decisions for their practices and we’ve seen that they are much more motivated to produce than a Dentist who is working for a corporation. We especially see this when some of the headaches are taken away and the doctors can focus on what they went to dental school for. When the Dentists are able to focus on the cases they enjoy, that’s when we’ve seen a lot of progress in top-line and bottom-line growth (not to mention an increase of joy in their work).
Typically, the larger the organization, the larger discounts we can obtain. We don’t pay for that or have any type of membership but rather because of our purchasing power we can get significant discounts. Our operations team has developed relationships with these suppliers (ie. Henry Schein, Patterson, etc.) We will continue to make this a priority for the group and will negotiate more discounts as we grow. With Schein and Patterson, we get around an 18-22% discount on all items and more on negotiated formulary items.
No. You will still maintain 100% ownership and full business/clinical autonomy for your practice. You are the private practice owner and make the calls. We can help with information and best practices that allow you to hone in on the parts of your business where you can gain efficiencies and grow revenue. This will provide a better experience for your patients and staff.
Yes, you will have the option to offload any backend functions that you don’t want to deal with or staff for. We have a centralized team that you’ll have access to (as a partner). Our operations team can help with any of the following: Accounting, Payroll, HR/Benefits, Billing, Collections, Hiring, Training, Marketing, and Legal. All of these expenses are billed at cost without any markup.
You will always own 100% of your practice. As a partner, SPP contracts for a percentage of future cash flows through a Master Services Agreement (MSA). A partner can swap between 25% and 49% of their practice cash flow into SPP stock/equity. For example, you could swap 40% of your future cash flow into SPP and retain 60% of the future cash flow of your practice. This split is only applicable to the funds left over AFTER you have paid all your bills and paid yourself. This would give you lots of additional upside as SPP grows. In fact, we believe that your SPP equity will grow at a much faster rate than your practice.
Most private practices sell between 4x – 6x earnings or 60-85% of annual collections, whereas dental groups like SPP get valuations upwards of 15x earnings (similar to DSO’s). SPP shares all of that upside with the SPP Dental Partners. This occurs for a few reasons; investment dollars are continually looking for diversified, consistent, non-seasonal, recession-resistant, cash-flowing businesses in the healthcare space. As an owner-led and owner-run dental group, we check all of those boxes. As the group gets larger and more diversified, this becomes a very attractive investment for outside groups. As owners, we can be strategic on who we take on as capital partners to ensure we maintain the soul of SPP and can save private practice while enjoying the upside usually reserved for DSOs.
We only want to have partners that are excited to be a part of SPP, so for all of our partners we have them join initially for a limited period, usually one year.. After that year, if the partner wants to leave the group, SPP will pay back 50% of any contributions that doctor has made up to that point. SPP will give the doctor back 100% of their future cash flow and the doctor would forfeit their equity in SPP. Essentially, we have a limited / one-year dating period to ensure SPP is a good fit for the doctor and their practice. Also, If you decide you want to exit in the next 5-8 years, there are multiple options that are available. You won’t be locked in for longer than that if you don’t want to be.
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