Larkpine Lending Group, an Iowa City, IA small-business funding service, explains dental practice loans: acquisition loans for buying a practice, term loans and equipment financing for opening or expanding, and working capital for payroll. A dental office loan calculator is linked, and Johnson County dental counts come from Census County Business Patterns 2023.
| Dental offices in Johnson County, IA, CBP 2023 | 54 |
|---|---|
| Under five employees | 33.3% |
| Paid employees | 391 |
| Annual payroll (2023) | $28.9 million |
| Structures to compare | Equipment loans and term loans |
How to get a dental practice loan, step by step
Decide first what you are funding: an acquisition, a start-up, an expansion or equipment. Each has its own structure and its own paperwork. For an acquisition, partners read the selling practice's collections, patient base and equipment. For equipment, they read the quote and your practice's revenue. For a start-up, they read you.
Price out the payment before you call: the dental office loan calculator shows a monthly payment and total repaid for an amount, term and rate you enter.
Dental practice acquisition loans
A practice purchase usually combines a term loan for goodwill and equipment with working capital for the transition. Partners focus on the seller's collections trend, active patient count, hygiene schedule and whether the seller will stay on for a period. Seller financing for part of the price can sit alongside the loan.
The term loan page explains acquisition financing in general. Purchase agreements, non-competes and asset allocation are questions for your attorney and accountant.
How much does it cost to open a dental practice? Build your own estimate
We do not publish a figure, because it varies with the number of operatories, the space, and whether you buy new or used equipment. The way to estimate it: price the build-out per operatory with a contractor, get equipment quotes for each operatory and for imaging and sterilization, add IT and software, and add several months of payroll and rent before collections cover them. That total is what a partner will review.
Dental equipment financing
- Dental chairs, delivery units and lights
- Digital sensors, panoramic and cone-beam imaging
- Sterilization equipment and compressors
- Practice software, servers and front-desk hardware
Each can be financed as equipment, secured by the item. See equipment financing for the loan-or-lease question.
Illustrative arithmetic: adding an operatory
Illustration only, not an offer: a practice adds a fourth operatory for $85,000, including a chair, delivery unit, sensor and cabinetry. If the added operatory supports two more hygiene days a week, the question for the partner is whether the added collections cover the payment with room to spare. Run the payment on the calculator with the rate you are quoted.
Johnson County, IA dental offices in Census figures
Johnson County, IA had 54 offices of dentists in 2023 (NAICS 6212), with 391 paid employees and about $28.9 million in annual payroll (U.S. Census Bureau, County Business Patterns 2023). Only 18 of them (33.3%) had fewer than five employees, a smaller share than among the county's physician offices (55.9%). Nonemployer Statistics 2024 counted 26 dental offices without paid employees.
Related pages: physician practices and the Iowa City, IA page for county data.
What partners usually review for dental offices
- Collections by month and by provider
- Active patient count and hygiene schedule
- Equipment quotes and age of existing equipment
- Lease terms
- For a purchase: the seller's records and transition plan
Associates, hygiene days and the payment test
Partners reviewing a dental request look closely at how production is split between the owner, associates and hygiene. A practice that depends on one dentist's production is read differently from one with associates and a full hygiene schedule. If you are buying a practice whose seller produced most of the revenue, plan how that production carries over.
Test any loan payment against collections, not production; collections are what arrive in the bank.
By Larkpine Lending Group · Updated