Are you Ready for succession?

The fact is that each year community based private practices are shutting their doors because there simply is nobody available to buy the practice. You've heard the story. A successful dentist has worked hard to build a practice, He is ready to retire, but no buyer can be found. The timing may just not be right, so he decides to wait a couple more years for the right buyer to come along, and cuts the work week by a day. Two more years pass and the magical buyer still is nowhere to be found, and cuts another work day.   

The practice is now worth a third to a half less, and patients are going elsewhere. Very shortly thereafter the doors are shut everyday, and a life's work is valued at next to nothing, the community loses a valuable contributing member, and patients lose the care of a committed doctor. If that doctor had it to do all over again, would she do something different. Maybe yes, maybe no. Perhaps, if he knew the numbers he may have. The truth is that the numbers don't lie, students who don't have a landing spot don't understand their alternatives, they carry huge student debt and believe that owning a private practice is out of reach.  So, they take the path of least resistance.