Bobby Bhandal busts some common myths about the level of risk associated with practice ownership and explains why it’s safer than you’ve been led to believe.
Quick quiz – rank them in order of what’s riskier: bungee jumping, getting struck by lightning or using your bathroom this morning.
Perhaps surprisingly, there’s a one in 10,000 chance that a visit to your bathroom in the morning could turn into a visit to A&E an hour later! That spur of the moment holiday bungee jump may feel riskier but in fact has a one in 500,000 fatality rate. And being struck by lightning while you’re celebrating life by dancing in the rain – well that comes with one in 1,000,000 chance annually.
Yet most dentists wander in and out of the bathroom half asleep in the morning without a second thought while consciously avoiding purportedly ‘risky’ decisions that could transform our lives.
Research shows that our brains are terrible at assessing risk. We fear the dramatic and unlikely while ignoring the mundane and probable. The result – we avoid ‘risky’ career moves while accepting the slow erosion of opportunity as ‘safe’.
This psychological quirk explains why so many talented dentists remain associates, convinced that practice ownership is dangerously risky.
But what if I told you that perception is completely wrong (and potentially way less risky than you are imagining)?
The statistical reality that changes everything
When my bank manager shared the business failure statistics with me during my practice loan application, I was stunned. ‘Healthcare businesses,’ he said, ‘have just a 7.3% failure rate – making practice ownership statistically safer than buying a franchise, starting an online business, or even opening an accounting firm.’
Let me put that in perspective:
- Restaurant/food service: 12.8% failure rate (nearly double healthcare)
- Retail business: 12.8% failure rate
- Professional services: 12.2% failure rate
- Healthcare: 7.3% failure rate.
Yet thousands of people open restaurants every year without the clinical skills, stable demand, or essential service advantage that dentists possess. Retail businesses face constant threats from online competition and economic downturns, while dental care remains essential regardless of market conditions.
The real risk nobody talks about
Here’s what might surprise you: staying put could actually be the riskier choice.
I recently spoke with a dentist – let’s call him David – who’d been an associate for 12 years. Clinically brilliant, respected by colleagues, earning a solid income. But when we calculated his financial trajectory, the numbers were sobering.
At his current rate of salary increases, factoring in inflation and the increasing corporatisation of dentistry, David would retire with a comfortable pension. Nothing more, nothing less. Forty years of professional life would end with… adequate financial security.
Meanwhile, his dental school classmate who’d opened a practice eight years ago? She’d just purchased her second location and was looking at early retirement.
The hidden risk of playing it safe isn’t dramatic failure – it’s the slow erosion of opportunity.
Every year you don’t act is a year of potential growth, wealth building, and professional fulfilment lost forever. Corporate dentistry might feel secure, but it’s security that comes with invisible shackles.
The three fear factors that paralyse dentists
Through my work with Squat Success, I’ve identified three core fears that stop talented dentists from realising their potential through practice ownership:
1. The financial abyss fear
‘What if I lose everything?’
This fear assumes worst-case scenarios while ignoring statistical reality. Remember: healthcare has the second-lowest failure rate of all business sectors. Even in the unlikely event of practice closure, how long would it take you to recover financially as an associate? For most dentists, it’s three to four years to get back to their current position. That’s the absolute worst case.
But what’s the upside? Financial independence, asset building, and the ability to create generational wealth.
2. The impostor syndrome
‘Who am I to think I can run a practice?’
You’ve already proven you can learn complex skills under pressure. You make clinical decisions affecting people’s lives daily. Running a practice is simply another skill set – one that thousands of dentists have successfully mastered.
The difference? Business skills can be learned systematically, just like clinical procedures.
3. The analysis paralysis
‘I need to know everything before I start.’
This fear disguises itself as diligence but is actually procrastination. You’ll never feel fully prepared – and that’s okay. Some things can only be learned by doing.
Every successful practice owner learned most of what they know after opening, not before.
The de-risking revolution
Here’s the truth: practice ownership isn’t risk-free. Nothing worthwhile ever is. But the risks that are associated with practice ownership are all identifiable and completely manageable when you have solid processes and systems in place.
The stress and failures that create horror stories? They almost always come from three predictable sources:
Poor decision making
Choosing locations based on rent prices rather than demographics, hiring based on desperation rather than cultural fit, opening without a patient acquisition strategy.
Inadequate preparation
Jumping in without proper financial planning, market research, or systematic approaches to the core challenges.
Outdated methods
Using recruitment techniques from the 1990s, traditional marketing that doesn’t work in today’s market, or trying to figure everything out through trial and error.
Each of these problems has a systematic solution.
The new model: systematic practice ownership
What if I told you there was a way to:
- Make the three most critical decisions (business model, location, timing) with confidence rather than guesswork
- Build a team of A-grade professionals rather than settling for whoever responds to your job ad
- Open with a queue of patients already waiting rather than hoping someone will call.
This isn’t theoretical. I’ve developed systematic approaches to each of these challenges, based on my own experience and guiding dozens of dentists through successful practice launches.
The dentists using these systems aren’t experiencing the stress and uncertainty that previous generations faced. They’re opening practices that reflect their values, serve their communities, and provide the professional and financial freedom they dreamed of.
The choice before you
You’re at a crossroads. Down one path lies the comfortable cage of associate life – steady, predictable, and ultimately limiting. Down the other lies the challenge and reward of building something of your own.
The risks of practice ownership are real but manageable. The risk of inaction – the slow erosion of opportunity, the gradual acceptance of limitations, the retirement wondering ‘what if?’ – that’s the risk that should keep you awake at night.
The question isn’t whether practice ownership involves risk. The question is: which risk can you live with?
So tomorrow morning, when you’re half asleep wandering into your bathroom without a second thought about the statistical dangers lurking behind that innocent shower door, perhaps you’ll also reconsider what truly constitutes ‘risk’ in your professional life.
After all, if you can face down a one in 10,000 chance every morning before your first cup of coffee, maybe it’s time to reconsider those 7.3% practice ownership odds.
Ready to separate myth from reality? Access the complete Dental Freedom Blueprint and discover why practice ownership might be less risky than you’ve been imagining: squatsuccess.co.uk/dental-freedom-blueprint.
This article is sponsored by Squat Success.
