A few months ago, I got a call from a dentist who had been working as an employee for three years. She was making close to $200,000 a year, had no major complaints about her job and wanted my professional opinion on a crossroads: Should she buy a practice now, or wait a few years until she felt more confident running a small business?I asked her a different question first. What does waiting cost you?She didn’t know. Almost nobody does, because almost nobody runs the math before they decide to wait. When smart professionals think about buying a business, they evaluate the decision entirely in terms of visible risk: The debtThe staffing responsibilitiesThe fear of something going sidewaysWhat gets left out of that calculation is the compounding cost of staying put.I work exclusively with buyers on the acquisition side of dental practice transitions. My team has advised on more than 1,500 deals across 49 states, and the most expensive mistake I see isn’t a bad purchase.It’s a highly capable, well-qualified buyer who waits years longer than the financial numbers support, because waiting feels like the responsible choice.It isn’t. What the delay costsThe American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute tracks net income for dentists who own their practices vs those who work as employees. Practice owners netted an average of $217,781 in 2024. Associates netted $160,891. That’s an annual income gap of roughly $57,000, and it has held steady for years.About Adviser IntelThe author of this article is a participant in Kiplinger’s Adviser Intel program, a curated network of trusted financial professionals who share expert insights on wealth building and preservation. Contributors, including fiduciary financial planners, wealth managers, CEOs and attorneys, provide actionable advice about retirement planning, estate planning, tax strategies and more. Experts are invited to contribute and do not pay to be included, so you can trust their advice is honest and valuable.To see how that plays out over a career, picture three professionals who start practicing at age 36 and retire at age 65:The early buyer buys a practice at 38The hesitant buyer waits five years and buys at 43The career employee stays an associate for the entire 29-year careerWhen you model realistic income progressions, business equity and tax structures, the outcomes look very different. By retirement, the early buyer accumulates roughly $10.8 million in cumulative career earnings. The hesitant buyer accumulates $9.7 million. The career employee finishes around $6 million.That’s a $1.1 million penalty for a five-year delay, and a $4.8 million gap between buying early and never buying at all. Every year a capable buyer waits is a year of wealth compounding they can’t recover.The number most people miss in this calculation is the financial inflection point. A business owner’s income jumps sharply once the initial acquisition loan is paid off. The dentist who bought at 38 hits that milestone at 48. The one who waited until 43 doesn’t get there until 53. Those extra five years, spent at a lower income level while carrying acquisition debt later in life, are where most of the seven-figure gap comes from. It’s not one bad year. It’s a decade of smaller numbers that never have the time to catch up.Why capable people still waitThe professionals I advise aren’t reckless. If anything, they’re the opposite. Clinical fields attract people who are cautious, detail-oriented and trained to avoid mistakes. That instinct produces excellent patient care, but it works against the same people at the negotiating table.The hesitation I hear most often isn’t about money. It’s about competence. Will I know how to manage payroll?Will the staff quit on me?Will I make a leadership mistake I can’t undo?These are fair questions, but buyers routinely overstate the real operational risk. When my firm tracked patient retention across hundreds of transitions, the data showed that the average practice gains 4.1% more patients in the six months after a sale than it loses. The fear tends to be larger than the reality.Student debt makes the hesitation worse, not better. Many young professionals graduate with $300,000 or more in loans and assume the safer move is to hold on to a steady paycheck until that balance feels more manageable. It’s an understandable reaction, but the math runs the other way. Ownership income is almost always the fastest path to paying down that debt, because a $57,000 annual income gap closes a six-figure loan significantly faster than a flat employee salary ever will.A framework for anyone weighing this decisionThe issues at play here aren’t unique to dentistry. Any licensed professional who could own the practice they currently work in, whether that’s a veterinarian, an optometrist or a physician in private practice, is working through a version of the same math. Before deciding to wait another year, three considerations are worth addressing honestly:What is the actual income gap in your field between owners and employees?Do not estimate. Most professional associations publish this data the way the ADA does for dentistry. Find the real number.What does that gap cost you over the years you consider waiting?Multiply the annual income difference by the number of years you’re thinking about delaying, then add a conservative estimate of the equity you would build in a business purchased today. The number is almost always larger than people expect. Remember, too, that skills and experience compound just as the numbers do.Separate the fears that are about your own competence from the fears that are about the specific deal in front of you.Competence fears are solvable. With the right accountant, attorney and an adviser who works only for you (not the seller), most people learn the business side faster than they think. Looking for expert tips to grow and preserve your wealth? Sign up for Adviser Intel, our free, twice-weekly newsletter.Deal fears, such as a practice with declining revenue or a lease with serious problems, are worth taking seriously and leaving behind. Take heart that at this very moment, within a few miles of you, there is an owner-professional of the business you’re considering buying who is operating a level below what you’d consider “competent” — and they’re not going bankrupt. The professionals who build strong lifetime wealth aren’t the ones who eliminate every uncertainty before buying. They are the ones who run the numbers, build an unconflicted team around them and move when the math says they are ready.The question is not whether you feel ready. It is what another year of waiting is already costing you.Related ContentWhat to Consider When Starting or Buying a BusinessFour Big Mistakes to Avoid if You’re Buying a BusinessTips to Help Entrepreneurs Create Self-Sustaining BusinessesBuilding a Business That Lasts: The Critical Steps to Avoid BlundersWhat You Need to Know About Working For YourselfThis article was written by and presents the views of our contributing adviser, not the Kiplinger editorial staff. 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I Help Professionals Buy Their Own Businesses: This Is the $1.1 Million Mistake I See All the Time
