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The Cash Flow Surgeon™ | Dental Practice Diagnostics | I solve the cases where the numbers don’t make sense.

08/31/2026

Nobody sends your overhead a memo when your margin slips.

Say a practice collects $1,000,000 and keeps $200,000 after everything is paid. Now the fee schedule slips 2%. That's $20,000 gone.

Same patients. Same hours. Same lab bills. Same payroll. Nothing about the day changed.

That $20,000 is 2% of what came in the door — and 10% of what the owner actually keeps.

The dollar didn't get bigger on the way down. Everything underneath it got smaller.

And here's the uncomfortable part: the tighter a practice already is, the more a slip hurts. A practice keeping 30 cents on the dollar loses about 7% of its profit. A practice keeping 10 cents loses 20%. Same 2%.

Working harder doesn't fix a rate you didn't set. It just runs the same thin margin more times.

Most owners look at this once a year, at tax time.

It changes every month.

Most owners don't need another plan. They need to know which problem they actually have.

The What's Next Assessment is free and takes about four minutes: darabadvisors.com/whats-next

08/21/2026

The number on the report and the number in the bank are not the same number.

I ran a practice for 33 years. For most of them, I could tell you my collections percentage without looking it up. It was good. I was proud of it.

What I couldn't tell you was how long it took the money to actually show up.

That turns out to be the more important question. A percentage tells you whether you got paid. It doesn't tell you when. And payroll doesn't run on percentages.

Here's a quick one you can do this week with numbers you already have:

Take your total accounts receivable. Divide it by your average monthly collections. Multiply by 30. That's roughly how many days a dollar of dentistry takes to turn into a dollar of money.

Do it for the last three months and look at the direction.

Flat or falling means the system is working. Climbing — while production stays about the same — means the practice is loaning out money it never decided to loan.

Nobody sends you a report about that. You have to go looking for it.

Curious What's Next? Find out more here...www.darabadvisors.com/whats-next Assessment

08/11/2026

The Two Ways a Busy Practice Runs Out of Money

Full schedule. Good month. Bank balance says otherwise.

Two causes worth checking first:

The money is late. Claims sitting unworked, balances aging, treatment accepted but never scheduled. You earned it — it just hasn't shown up.

The money is gone. Supplies creep up. Fees you haven't touched in years. Write-offs nobody questions.

They look identical from the operatory. They're fixed in completely opposite ways.

And they're connected: money that sits long enough stops being late and starts being gone.

Most owners guess. Guessing costs a year.

The What's-Next Assessment is free and takes ten minutes. It just tells you where you actually stand. → https://darabadvisors.com/whats-next/

CashFlowSurgeon

07/28/2026

You gave them a raise. They’re still thinking about leaving.

Most practice owners I talk to are frustrated — they did the right thing on wages and it still didn’t feel like enough. The data says why.

The August issue of What’s Next breaks it down.

Link below. 👇

07/23/2026

New series — one mental model for practice owners. This one runs first because it sits underneath all the others. Deferred decisions don't stay open forever. The market, a lease renewal, a health event, or a buyer eventually closes them for you — on terms you didn't pick. Worth asking this week: which decision is quietly being made for you right now?

07/06/2026

Most independent dentists don’t sell to private equity.

They sell quietly to another independent dentist. That buyer (and their bank) care way more about SDE, loan coverage, and take-home cash flow than one perfect EBITDA multiple.

Behind the scenes, your valuation professional will mix and match methods—SDE, EBITDA, DCF, book value, market comps—and often average several for private deals.

Before you chase “the best multiple,” ask: who’s my most likely buyer, and what numbers do they really care about?

If you want to quietly pressure-test your numbers, DM me ‘VALUATION’ and I’ll share how I walk independent dentists through this.

06/28/2026

Collections don’t pay your mortgage. What’s left after overhead does.

Most practice owners I talk to are working harder than ever — and scratching their heads at the end of the month, wondering where it all went.

The July issue of What’s Next breaks it down.

Link Below. 👇

06/18/2026

A straight-talk one for the practice owners.

Every consultant will tell you your overhead "should" sit around 60%. So you check, you're at 62%, and you either panic or relax based on that one number.

Here's the thing — that number tells you almost nothing.

1. First, there's no standard for what "overhead" even includes. One office counts it against production, the next against collections. One includes the dentist's pay and the loan, the next leaves both out. So comparing your number to someone else's is like comparing two thermometers set to different scales. The only fair comparison is to yourself — your number this quarter against last, measured the same way every time.

2. Second, it's just a ratio — expenses divided by collections. Raise your fees, and it drops, even though you cut nothing. Have a slow collections month, and it jumps, even though you didn't spend more. The number can move without anything real changing.

And

3. Third, even an honest number is a lag indicator — a rear-view mirror. It tells you what already happened last year, not what to change, or how.

The real story is underneath: your team, your PPO plans, your supplies and lab, the software you've been auto-renewing for years. That's where the decisions actually live. The percentage is just the symptom.

So instead of "is my overhead too high," the better question is "what's my next move — and what will it free up?"

And if you've ever gone back and forth on whether to Stay, Scale, Slow Down, or Sell, my free What's Next Assessment is a good place to start.

DM me NEXT, and I'll send it your way — no pitch, just a clear read on where you stand.

06/10/2026

Introducing What's Next — my new monthly newsletter for dental practice owners.
If you own a dental practice you have probably been told your only choices are to grow it or sell it.
But most owners I talk to are not living in that binary world. They are somewhere in between — working hard, doing well, and quietly wondering if there is a better version of what they have built.
What's Next is built for that conversation.
Every month I curate the most useful intelligence on cash flow, practice value, and the strategic decisions that determine whether you stay, scale, slow down, or sell — on your terms.
Four paths forward. Not two.
✅ Stay — optimize cash flow and make the practice worth owning.
📈 Scale — build enterprise value and grow beyond yourself.
⏱️ Slow Down — fewer days, more life, no exit required.
🤝 Sell — transition intentionally at maximum value on your terms.
The first issue is live right now. It covers five things that quietly shape what your practice is worth — and what to do about each one while you still have time and options.
Two ways to get started — both free:
👉 Take the What's Next Assessment to find out which path fits where you are right now.
👉 Subscribe to the newsletter for monthly dental intelligence delivered to your inbox.
Links in the comments.
The Cash Flow Surgeon™ | Coach and Advisor to Dental Practice Owners
Darab Business Advisors | darabadvisors.com

05/28/2026

Most of us can rattle off our collections.

We don't know our Adjusted EBITDA margin (me included, for a long time).

That number doesn’t tell you “what your practice is worth.”
But it does show how much real profit your practice is throwing off once you strip out perks, one‑offs, and tax stuff.

When you compare your margin to “best in class” and run the math on your current collections, it’s a pretty good wake‑up call on how much value is still hiding in the practice you already own. You can call it your Profit Gap, or Hidden Value, too.

You don’t have to fix it by working more days or cranking up marketing.

You fix it by working ON your business, not IN your business.

If you want help ballparking your margin, message me, and I’ll point you in the right direction.

Mark LeBlanc Dentaltown Financial accounting & commerce

Address

Davidson, NC

Website

http://www.darabadvisors.com/, http://www.darabadvisors.com/whats-next

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