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Seeing a specialist matters in medicine. You wouldn't ask your internist to perform a root canal, and you wouldn't ask your dentist to read a chest X-ray.
The same logic applies to financial planning, but dentists often don't apply it to their own advisors. Matt Mulcock, CFP®, managing partner at Dentist Advisors and host of "The Dentist Money Show," has spent his career working exclusively with dentists. He has seen what happens when technically sound general advice meets a dental-specific financial situation, and the results are not always what the dentist expected.
Here, he breaks down what dentists get wrong when choosing advisors, what questions to ask and why the stakes are highest at the moments that matter most.
— Dental Bite team
This is a sponsored Q&A
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Photo courtesy Dentist Advisors
What's the biggest financial mistake you see dentists make when they use a general advisor, CPA or lawyer instead of one who specializes in dentistry?
One of our advisors coined a phrase we use often: “Good general advice is usually bad specific advice.”
A general advisor may give perfectly reasonable advice, but they often lack the context to know whether it is right for a dentist at that particular stage of their career. Dentistry has its own financial ecosystem: unusually high debt, practice ownership, complex retirement plans, large cash flows, practice transitions and a significant overlap between business and personal finances.
The biggest mistake we see is treating the practice as separate from the dentist’s financial plan or failing to recognize that the practice is usually the primary engine of wealth creation. A general advisor, CPA, or attorney may understand 401(k)s, deductions, contracts, or operating agreements. But if they do not work in dentistry every day, they are more likely to miss how those decisions affect the dentist’s broader life, liquidity, and long-term ability to make work optional.
The individual recommendation may not be technically wrong. It may simply be wrong for the dentist.
“Good general advice is usually bad specific advice.”
Can you give a specific example where dental-specific knowledge changed the advice a client got?
We worked with a dentist who had been aggressively paying down student loans. They had directed most of their available cash flow and liquidity toward reducing the balance because they had been told the debt would make it harder to qualify for a practice loan.
Paying down debt is not necessarily bad general advice. But it was poor advice for this dentist, who planned to purchase a practice within the next six to 12 months.
In their situation, preserving cash, building liquidity, and maintaining flexibility were far more important than rapidly reducing the student loan balance. Dental lenders generally understand dentists' debt profiles. They tend to care more about the dentist’s clinical experience, production history, liquidity, and the financial viability of the practice being purchased.
By following generic debt advice, this dentist had weakened the very financial position that would help them become a practice owner.
If your financial team isn’t moving you forward, you can meet with a CFP® advisor to discuss your goals, review your current financial picture, and get answers to your most important questions. You’ll leave with greater clarity on where you are and what to do next.
What questions should a dentist ask to check if their current CPA, attorney or advisor actually understands the dental industry?
Start with direct questions:
How many dentists do you currently work with?
How long have you worked with dentists and dental practice owners?
What financial challenges make dentists different from your other clients?
How does your advice change as a dentist moves from associate to owner and eventually toward a practice transition?
How do you integrate the dentist’s practice finances with their personal financial plan?
Can you give examples of advice you have tailored specifically for a dentist?
What relationships do you have with dental lenders, brokers, practice consultants, transition specialists, and other dental professionals?
How do you collaborate with the dentist’s other advisors?
Dentists should listen for specific answers, not broad assurances. Saying “we work with medical professionals” is not the same as understanding dental practice ownership. The advisor should be able to explain how dentistry changes the advice they give. Dentist Advisors can help answer your questions.
Why does dental-specific expertise matter more during a practice transition or exit than at any other stage?
A practice transition is usually the largest and most consequential transaction of a dentist’s career.
There are decisions to be made regarding valuation, deal structure, taxes, real estate, debt, employee retention, insurance, retirement readiness, the timing of the sale, and what the dentist wants life to look like afterward. Many of those decisions are difficult to reverse once the transaction is complete.
An experienced dental team understands the sequence of events, the professionals who need to be involved, the questions that should be asked, and the common mistakes that can reduce the deal's value or create unnecessary stress.
Experience matters most when the stakes are high, and the dentist only gets one chance to do it well.
If a dentist can only upgrade one relationship first, financial advisor, CPA or attorney, which should it be and why?
It depends on the dentist’s stage of life and the problem they are trying to solve. But if I had to pick one, I would usually start with the CPA.
The practice is typically the engine that drives the dentist’s income and wealth-building capacity. A proactive, dental-specific CPA can help the dentist understand profitability, improve tax planning, manage payroll and entity decisions, and avoid surprises.
A close second is a dental-specific financial advisor who can connect the practice to the dentist’s personal life: cash flow, investments, debt, insurance, liquidity and retirement readiness.
Attorneys are also critical, particularly when buying a practice, adding a partner, restructuring ownership, updating an estate plan, or selling a practice. But the attorney relationship is generally more transactional. A CPA and financial advisor are more likely to be involved in the dentist’s decisions throughout the year.
The larger point is that these professionals should not work in isolation. The best result comes from a coordinated team that understands dentistry and communicates with one another.
Is your accounting team helping you move forward?
You can schedule a conversation with a member of our team to learn more about our accounting services, including tax planning and strategy, tax preparation and filing, practice accounting and bookkeeping, and payroll services. Think of it as a second opinion. We will help you assess what’s working, what’s not, and where there may be gaps or opportunities.
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