I had a great conversation with the team at Ember AI for their Healthcare Intelligence Podcast about something I’ve spent more than a decade close to: the consolidation of dentistry, and what it actually means for the dentist who owns the practice. If you’ve watched the rise of DSO roll-ups and wondered where it leaves you, this episode is for you.
What we get into
- Why the roll-up era is entering a new phase. The easy growth of buying practices and stacking them together is giving way to a harder question: which of these practices are actually worth what was paid for them.
- What “real value” means. A practice’s value isn’t its collections or a round-number multiple. It’s the normalized profit a buyer can count on, and the difference between the two is where owners get surprised.
- Where AI helps, and where it doesn’t. Used well, AI can reconstruct a practice’s earnings the way a buyer would, in minutes instead of weeks. Used carelessly, a general-purpose chatbot will hand you a confident number that falls apart in diligence.
- What it means for an owner planning ahead. Whether a sale is next year or ten years out, the number you carry in your head shapes real decisions, and it’s worth grounding that number in how buyers actually think.
That last point is exactly why Karen and I built Practice Worth. It takes your real numbers, rebuilds your earnings the way a buyer would, and gives you a defensible value range in about ten minutes. If the episode got you wondering where your own practice stands, there’s a free sample report that shows you what that looks like.
About the guest. Dr. David Eslinger holds a DDS and an MBA and has spent more than a decade on the buy side of dental practice transactions, founding Eslinger Dental Consultants and holding C-suite, executive leadership, and board roles in the DSO industry. He co-founded Practice Worth in 2026 with Karen Eslinger, RDH. Learn more at getpracticeworth.com.
Thanks to the team at Ember AI for having me on the Healthcare Intelligence Podcast.