What documents do I need to review before buying a dental practice?
The four documents that decide most deals are three years of business tax returns, a current year-to-date profit and loss from the accountant, production by provider, and the full lease with every amendment. Brokers release them after a signed confidentiality agreement, and each one answers a question the listing cannot.
The four that matter most
| Three years of business tax returns | The only figures an outside party has already attested to. Shows the trend, not a snapshot, and it is what the lender underwrites. |
| Year-to-date profit and loss, from the accountant | Tells you what the practice is doing now rather than what it did the year before last. Ask for it from the CPA, not the practice software. |
| Production by provider | Who generates the production. If most of it is the departing owner, you are buying a schedule you have to refill; if it is an associate, find out whether they are staying. |
| The full lease, with every amendment | Remaining term, assignment clause, rent escalators, who pays for what. A lease shorter than your loan is a financing problem. |
Red flags worth asking about
Collections declining across the three tax years, with no explanation offered. There may be a good one — a maternity leave, a construction closure — but it should be volunteered, not discovered.
One provider generating most of the production. If that provider is the departing owner, you are buying a schedule you have to refill. If it is an associate, ask whether they are staying and what their agreement says.
A short lease, or no assignment clause. A lease with less remaining term than your loan is a financing problem before it is a real-estate problem.
Add-backs you cannot trace to a line on the return. Every adjustment should point at something you can see.
Day sheets offered instead of production reports. They are not the same document, and day sheets can carry patient health information that should never be in a due-diligence package.
What you will not get before an NDA
The practice name, the address, the staff roster and the financial package. That is deliberate and universal — see why listings are anonymous. What is public is the metro area, the specialty, the size, and whatever financial outline the broker chose to publish.
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Counts as of Nov 14, 2026.
Related questions
Every listing count on this page is computed from the listings published on The Dental Practice Market and was rebuilt Nov 14, 2026. Descriptions of the buying process are general information, not statistics or advice. Supply-side only: we publish how many practices are listed, where and of what type. We never publish an estimate of what a practice is worth.