I spent twenty-five years on the manufacturing side of this industry, which means I've sat through a lot of forecast meetings where somebody held up a survey showing dentists planned to buy equipment. Those forecasts were usually wrong in a predictable direction.

The ADA's Q2 2026 report just publi...

Adding an operatory to an existing practice typically costs $75,000 to $175,000 for a full comprehensive build, or $35,000 to $80,000 per room before equipment if you're doing a leaner renovation into already-plumbed space. Building new runs the full construction cost we cover in the pillar guide — ...

Dental office construction runs $165 to $330 per square foot depending on finish level, before equipment. That's the range you'll hit whether you're building a lean, function-first practice or a design-forward flagship — the difference is entirely in what's behind that number.

Contractors and denta...

A new dental office runs somewhere between $150 and $300 per square foot for construction alone in most U.S. markets in 2026 — and once you add equipment, technology, and the soft costs nobody budgets for, that number climbs to $300 to $500+ per square foot all-in. For a typical six-operatory practi...

By Dental Strategy Institute | June 2026 | 8-Minute Read | For DSO Operators and Group Practice Leaders

The DSO model had a run in the early 2020s that looked, in retrospect, like a period where almost anything worked. Low interest rates made debt cheap. Private equity was aggressive. Multiples exp...

Here's how equipment capital planning works in most dental groups: a chair breaks at Location 7. Someone calls the service company. The service company comes out and says the pump motor is gone. The office manager calls the regional director. The regional director calls the CFO. The CFO asks why thi...

The Question That Costs Practices Thousands — Answered Wrong The service tech just told you the repair is $2,200. The chair is 9 years old. Should you fix it or replace it? Most practice owners answer this question by feel. Below is the actual framework — so the answer is a calculation, not a guess....

There's a piece of equipment in almost every dental practice that's older than it should be. Sometimes it's the compressor, running warm and loud in the utility room. Sometimes it's a delivery unit that the rep keeps telling you is "totally fine" even though the chair-side assistant is holding the h...

If you run procurement for a dental group — or you're the CFO signing off on capital requests — you already know the problem I'm about to describe. I've spent more than 25 years working inside and alongside dental organizations of every size. And in all that time, one operational blind spot shows up...