320. He Bought a 3-Chair Practice With ZERO Patients on Day 2 — Now It's Doubled | Dr. Eric Palmer
About this episode
Dr. Eric Palmer shares his journey of transforming a struggling dental practice into a thriving business.
Five and a half years ago, Dr. Eric Palmer bought a three-operatory dental practice about 20 minutes outside one of the most competitive dental markets in the United States. The practice had no insurance verification process, no real treatment plan presentation, and a hard credit check on every new patient. Today, that same practice has doubled its production and collections on the same three chairs, runs on a three- to four-day clinical week, and is being built out to eight operatories to support a future associate hire. In this conversation, Eric and Steve walk through the entire arc: discovering practice ownership through a podcast episode during residency, finding an off-market practice through direct mailers to retiring dentists, navigating a financing gap when a home sale fell through days before closing, fixing broken front-office systems in the first weeks of ownership, and building a billing strategy that profits inside a low-fee-allowable PPO state using CEREC same-day dentistry. Key topics covered: Finding off-market dental practices for sale through direct outreach Bridging a financing gap with seller financing during an acquisition Fixing insurance verification and…
People in this episode
Host: Steve
Guest: Dr. Eric Palmer
Topics covered
- practice ownership
- dental practice acquisition
- insurance verification
- treatment plan presentation
- staff management
- CEREC technology
- practice growth
Keywords
- dental practice
- practice acquisition
- insurance verification
- CEREC
- PPO
- treatment plans
- staff transitions
- practice growth
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: CEREC
Places: United States
More episodes of The Lifestyle Practice Podcast For Dentists
- 324. The Simplest Dental Team Training That Actually Works
- 323. Why "Hire Slow, Fire Fast" Is Terrible Advice for Dental Practice Owners
- 322. How I Paid Off $300K in Dental School Loans in One Year (The Full Breakdown)
- 321. From $800K a Year to Bankrupt: What Went Wrong
- 319. 2026 Is Halfway Over: Are You Winning or Losing as a Dentist?
- 318. The 3 Problems Killing Dental Practice Profits in 2026 (And How to Fix Them)
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