Sell by industry · Healthcare practices
Selling your practice
How dental, medical, veterinary, and therapy practices are bought, and what the buyers pay for.
A practice is sold on what it earns after the owner is paid a market salary, and after the owner is gone. Group buyers read the same chart every time: owner production, associates on retention agreements, recall rates, payer mix, and the lease. The offer is usually cash plus a stake in the group, with the owner staying on for a term.
What buyers pay for
In healthcare practices, buyers pay a premium for a few things and discount the rest
Every offer is built from the same ledger. One column is what moves a practice up the range. The other is what a buyer finds in diligence and takes off the price.
Priced up
- Associates on retention agreements, with a share of production
- Owner production under half of collections
- Recall and reactivation rates that show the patient base is an asset
- A fee schedule and a payer mix read line by line and kept current
Priced down
- Owner production above half of collections, the largest discount in a practice sale
- Associates with no agreement, or one that does not survive a sale
- A fee schedule that has not moved in years
- Compliance, credentialing, and a lease a buyer cannot assume
Who is across the table
The buyers who show up for a practice, in the order they usually do
Five kinds of buyer exist in every sector. Healthcare practices draws some of them more than others, and each one reads your business a different way. A competitive process puts more than one of them at the table, so the terms are set by competition.
Private equity platform
A DSO, MSO, or group backed by a sponsor, buying practices by the dozen. Pays cash plus equity in the group, and keeps the owner for a term.
- Wants
- A durable business to build on with add-on acquisitions.
- Pays
- A market multiple, with rollover equity for a second exit.
Private equity add-on
A group already in your market, adding your practice for density. Fast diligence, and an earn-out on production is common.
- Wants
- A bolt-on to a company they already own.
- Pays
- A multiple close to the platform's, with faster diligence.
Strategic acquirer
A hospital system or a larger group adding your specialty or your location. The highest price when the referral fit is real; the brand usually goes.
- Wants
- Your customers, product, or territory added to theirs.
- Pays
- Often the highest price when the fit is real, with synergies priced in.
Individual or search fund
An associate buying the practice to own, often with a seller note and a bank. The most common buyer for a single-provider practice.
- Wants
- A business to run themselves.
- Pays
- Bank-financed prices with seller notes common.
The published multiple
What buyers have paid for healthcare practices
This is the median its source published, not a FNDRS estimate. It is on owner earnings, not on EBITDA like the typical range above, so the two do not compare directly. The ledger is what moves a sale inside and beyond it.
owner earnings was the median multiple paid for dental practices sold on BizBuySell from 2021 to 2025.
How the sale runs
Four phases, and what diligence reads first in healthcare practices
Selling a practice follows the same path as every FNDRS sale: the Go-To-Market Analysis, then four phases, prepare, market, select, and close. What changes in healthcare practices is what the buyer's diligence reaches for first.
Diligence reads first
- Collections by provider, and the share produced by the owner
- Associate agreements, compensation, and non-competes, and whether they survive a sale
- Recall, reactivation, and new-patient rates
- Payer contracts, credentialing, compliance, and the lease
- Before the saleThe Go-To-Market AnalysisA buyer's read of the business, with your CPA in the room
- Phase oneGo-to-market preparationThe financials and the materials a buyer will read
- Phase twoMarket launch and offersBuyers under NDA, and the offers by one date
- Phase threeMeetings and final selectionThe shortlist, the counter-offers, one letter of intent
- Phase fourDiligence and closeThe buyer checks everything, and the money moves
The terms
The deal terms a practice is most likely to see
The headline number is one line of a term sheet. These are the terms that come up most often when a practice is sold, what each one means, and how it tends to be used in healthcare practices.
- Rollover equity
A share of your proceeds reinvested in the buyer's company for a second exit.
In healthcare practices. Group buyers pay part of the price in equity in the group, so the owner shares in the group's own sale later. The stake and its terms vary widely.
- Earn-out
Part of the price paid later, if the business hits agreed targets after close.
In healthcare practices. Tied to the owner's production or the practice's collections during the term the owner stays.
- Working capital peg
The normal level of working capital the buyer expects to be left in the business at close.
In healthcare practices. Receivables and the payer mix set it. A practice with slow payers argues over it.
What owners are told
Three things owners in healthcare practices hear, and what buyers actually do
Each one is common enough to have cost a founder money. Open a row for the correction.
The group will pay a premium for my production.
FactThe group pays for the production that stays after you leave. Your own production is what the offer discounts, and the term you stay is how they protect it.
Selling to a group means losing clinical control.
FactMost group offers keep clinical decisions with the provider and take the back office. The terms say which, and they are negotiated before the letter of intent.
My associate will buy the practice.
FactAn associate buying the practice needs bank financing, a seller note, and a price a bank will underwrite. A group buyer brings the capital. The two offers are compared on take-home and certainty.
Healthcare practices
Healthcare practices owners on working with FNDRS
Short testimonials from owners who went through the FNDRS process. Most are under two minutes.
No founder in this industry is on film yet. The first testimonial goes here once it is filmed; until then, every founder we have filmed is one link away.
The FNDRS Podcast · Healthcare practices
Healthcare practices business · ASAP Health · Prajakta Hershey
Nick Long with Prajakta Hershey, CEO and founder of ASAP Health, a behavioral health agency serving at-risk youth and families. Taking practitioners out of the administrative back end so they can focus on healing, and her experience partnering with FNDRS to scale and fall back in love with her vision.
Nick LongHost, CEO and co-founder of FNDRS
Not ready to sell yet
Scale the practice first, then sell it for more
The valuation playbook for healthcare practices reads the same market from the other side: the value gap in numbers, the element buyers weigh first, and the order of work that closes the gap before you go to market.
Selling a practice? Start with a conversation
The playbook gives the range. The deal team gives the number, the buyers who will show up, and the terms to expect.