Sell-Side Baseline · $6,500 · flat fee
When you sell, the buyer's team reads your practice software for what your tax return can't show: how much of the profit depends on you, and how much an insurer could take back. The Baseline finds it first, for a flat fee, while there's still time to fix it.
The result: more cash at close, on better terms.
No payment today. We send the engagement letter, the privacy agreement, and the invoice first; nothing starts until they are signed. $6,500 flat. No success fee. Ten business days.
One real practice, read all the way down
Details changed to protect the owner; numbers rounded. The CPA did his job and the financial statements were accurate. None of this was on them.
$125K of lost EBITDA
= $875K of lost value at 7x
The owner paid himself below market and rented his own building below market. A buyer adds those costs back, and the practice is worth seven times less for every dollar.
24.6% vs 4.4%
= Longer earnout likely
The owner diagnosed a quarter of all treatment while doing 4% of the exams. A buyer who sees that keeps you working longer, and ties part of your price to what happens after you sell.
$680K clawback risk
= Larger holdback
Insurance paid 93% of claims clean, but the billing patterns underneath would not survive a payer audit. A buyer holds back part of your price to cover what the insurer could take back.
Find and fix all three before a buyer does, and the same practice sells for more cash at close, on better terms.
That is the whole job of the Baseline.
What we read
Your CPA checks the books you kept. The buyer's team also checks the records your practice software kept, and in dentistry that is where the big surprises come from. We check both and make them agree.
Your true profit
What a buyer will subtract from your profit before they price it.
Paying yourself less than it would cost to replace you. Contractors who are really employees. Rent to your own building below market. Each dollar they take off your profit comes off your price seven times over.
How much depends on you
Whether the practice keeps earning after you step back.
Who diagnoses the treatment and who does it. Whether patients return when you are not in the building. Whether next year's hygiene schedule is already full. Buyers do not lower the price for this; they make you stay longer to get paid.
Whether your billing holds up
What an insurance company could take back after you sell.
Billing codes that pay today but fail an audit later. Refunds owed to patients and insurers that never left the practice. The buyer prices both as money they are inheriting, and holds back part of your price to cover it.
Read the longer version: The Three Faces of Phantom EBITDA →
What you get
First
What your practice earns after a buyer makes every adjustment they are going to make. Your profit on paper, your profit after their adjustments, and your profit after the software is read, with each finding traced back to the records it came from. That is the number they will pay on, and you should know it before they do.
Second
What is holding the number down, what each fix is worth at the multiple, what to leave alone because the fix would not pay back, and the order to do it in. Every line has a dollar value, an owner, a timeline, and the number that proves it worked.
Delivered as a written report and dashboard, plus a one-hour call with you and any advisor you want in the room.
Who it is for
A year is the minimum for a fix to become a trend a buyer will pay for. That is why this review is a separate thing from the one we run when a deal is already on the table. If you have not decided whether to sell, you still get the same review, because the owner who knows their real number is the one who gets to choose, including choosing not to sell.
Already talking to a buyer, or expecting an offer within a year? You need the five-year review: Pre-LOI Defense, from $25,000.
How it works
Order
Order online. The invoice and the privacy agreement (a Business Associate Agreement) follow the same day.
Sign, then we pull the data
Nothing moves until the agreement is signed. Then a one- to three-hour remote session using your software's own reports. Read-only: nothing installed, nothing changed.
We read it
Twelve months, all three areas, matched to your income statement. Patient names removed first.
You get the report
Within ten business days: the written report, a one-hour call with you and any advisor you want in the room, and the fix list with a dollar value on each line.
Why you can trust the answer
Independence
Never both sides
PDA never works for the buyer and the seller on the same transaction. If we have worked for one, we decline the other.
Fixed fee, never a success fee
No percentage of the deal, no broker commissions, no referral fees from lenders or vendors. The fee is the fee.
Vendor work stays separate
Independent Validation Studies are methodology-first, and vendor work never appears in PDA diligence.
Your data
Business Associate Agreement first
Executed before any practice-management data is extracted. No data is accepted until it is signed.
Read-only extraction
Native PMS reporting in a one- to three-hour remote session. No integrations installed, no write access.
De-identified analysis
Patient identifiers are stripped at extraction. Findings are reported at the code, provider, and ledger level.
Purged at close
Extracted data is destroyed at engagement close and never retained on external systems.
Before you hire anyone, including us
Ask every advisor the same five. The answers tell you who they really work for.
Questions
A $6,500 flat-fee review of your practice, done the way a buyer's team will do it, before they do it. We read the last twelve months of your practice-management software and match it to your income statement. We look at three things: your true profit after the adjustments a buyer will make, how much of the practice depends on you personally, and whether your insurance billing would hold up to a payer audit. You get a written report, a one-hour call to walk through it, and a step-by-step fix list with the dollar value of each fix.
No. We do not tell you what your practice is worth; that comes from a licensed appraiser, and a bank will require one on any loan of $3 million or more under the SBA rule that took effect October 1, 2026. We tell you what a buyer will find when they examine your practice, what that will do to your price and your terms, and what to fix while there is still time. Most owners use both: the appraisal for the number, the Baseline to protect it.
Owners who think they might sell in the next one to three years, including owners who have not decided yet. A year is the minimum for a fix to show up as a trend a buyer will pay for. If you are already talking to a buyer or expect a letter of intent within a year, you need the five-year review instead: Pre-LOI Defense, from $25,000.
A Quality of Earnings report is done by an accounting firm on your financial statements. It checks the books you kept. The Baseline checks the records your practice software kept: who diagnoses and who produces, what treatment was presented and what was completed, whether next year's hygiene patients are already scheduled, whether your billing codes would survive a payer audit, and how much you owe patients and insurers in refunds. Buyers check both. In the $10 million practice on this page, the accounting review cut profit from about $720,000 to about $595,000. The software review found the rest.
You order online. We send an invoice and a Business Associate Agreement, which protects patient privacy; nothing is pulled until it is signed. Then a one- to three-hour remote session where we run your practice software's own reports. Read-only: nothing is installed and nothing is changed. Patient names are removed before analysis. Within ten business days you get the report, the one-hour call, and the fix list, and the data is destroyed when we are done. Extra locations are priced per location, and any Individual Report you bought in the last 90 days is credited toward the fee.
No. The fee is the fee. We take no percentage of your sale, no broker commissions, and no referral fees from lenders or vendors, and we never work for the buyer and the seller on the same deal. You are the only one paying for the review, which is what makes it independent.
Before the buyer does
$6,500, flat, invoiced after the engagement letter and privacy agreement are signed. Ten business days. Your real number and your fix list, before anyone else reads your practice for you.