- HIGH
- Business
- Tier 1
- Hard News
The shifting DSO landscape
- Source
- Becker's Dental + DSO Review
- Author
- Ariana Portalatin
- Originally at
- beckersdental.com(opens in a new tab)
Summary and scoring by The Bell Brief (Dr. Jennifer Bell) using the Drill-Down Protocol. Not the original publisher.
Why it matters for dental
DSO ownership among U.S. dentists has more than doubled since 2015 and now stands at 16.1%, while practice ownership has fallen to a 20-year low of 73%. Practice owners, DSOs, and private-equity platforms must adjust acquisition, staffing, and governance strategies as more states consider limits on corporate control of clinical decisions.
Key points
- 01
DSOs completed 30 of the 51 dental transactions recorded in the third quarter, including 16 by private-equity-backed groups.
- 02
TUSK Practice Sales reports the top reasons DSOs walk away from deals are provider risk, clinical continuity, declining financial performance, and reimbursement exposure.
- 03
Park Dental Partners remains the only publicly traded U.S. DSO following its December 2025 IPO.
- 04
More than 20 private-equity-backed dental platforms are seven or more years into their hold periods, positioning them for recapitalizations, secondary sales, or IPOs in the next 12 months.
Who should care
- Owner
- DSO
Read the original
Becker's Dental + DSO Review
Full reporting and any paywalled content live on beckersdental.com. We summarize and score; we do not republish.