Most dental practices don’t fail — they just quietly cap their own upside. In this episode of The Margin Line, Joe Lynch sits down with Dr. Anthony Stefanou, founder of Connect the Dents, to unpack what actually drives long-term value in a dental practice — and why many owners misunderstand it. 

After completing more than 2,000 practice appraisals, Dr. Stefanou breaks down the real mechanics behind $1M+ practices: how DSOs evaluate risk, why hygiene departments are the engine of enterprise value, and the operational decisions that separate lifestyle clinics from scalable businesses.

They get into:

• Why production alone is a misleading metric
• How DSOs think about insurance, EBITDA, and control
• The hidden levers that increase valuation without burning out staff
• What most dentists should change years before they plan to sell

If you’re building a practice with an exit in mind — or just want to understand what makes one business-grade versus replaceable — this conversation pulls back the curtain.