what does the data actually show?

Yeah, good question.

So the data show that DSOs, depending on how you measure, by the way, nobody knows the total number.

What counts as a DSO? Is it the oral surgeon that owns four practices? Is that a DSO? Heartland certainly is a DSO.

Anyway, the data is suggesting that private equity or DSO ownership of the 161,000 dental practices in the US hovers somewhere between 17 and 18 percent right now in 2026 as we're recording.

But that's gone up from 10% about eight years ago and less than 5% 20 years ago.

And so people are looking at this trend line and they're going, you know, I know veterinary over there, veterinary got up to 50%.

And I can always re-ask some of those questions if you want.

I just went like, Nike, just do it, guys.

Remember how good you weren't at all the clinical stuff that you're really good at now.

Right.

So dentists, the superpower that most dentists have is that attention to detail, like the obsession over the details and the minutiae.

And, and as a patient, like I got to go to filling next week.

And as a patient, I want mine to this freaking thinking about all of the, all of the little details.

Right.

Totally.

Mm-hmm

... do the math, and I did the math at, like, a 38-year-old dentist versus a 33-year-old dentist.

And I assumed that they actually retired at a, both retired at age 60, okay? So, like, different lengths of associate part of your career and owner part of your career.

Uh, with compound interest, assuming 7% and some of those other th- variables that I put in there, it was a $1.14 million difference between those two numbers.

So don't forget that while you're busy, like, taking care of your student loans so you can feel ready to buy a practice, um, it's costing you an enormous amount of money.

And Kira, I would just add, and I'm curious if you can think of any others, I would say the compound or the compound effect that I'm talking about is not just money, although money is a big part of it.

I think the compound effect applies to other things.

[laughs]

... dental offices?

So I'll give you a few data points, and let's, let's talk about kind of the marketplace.

So if, uh, something like 16, 17% of dental practices in the US are owned by some kind of corporate entity, DSOs, whatever, however we wanna draw that line, um, that percentage has grown from, you know, 5% in the last 15 years.

And so a lot of people are worried that dentistry's gonna be like the veterinary market, right? Veterinary's got to the point where it's 50% of all vet practices in the US were owned by, you know, some corporate entity.

Um, that has shifted.

It's now 35% of the vet space, uh, as of 2026, and, and, and who cares? That's vets.

Well, let's talk about dentistry.

It's already-