![Geographic Distribution of 5,000+ Dental Practices Affiliated with Private Equity-Backed DSOs Across the United States [OC]](https://www.byteseu.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/s3y494ke2dtf1-1024x585.png "Geographic Distribution of 5,000+ Dental Practices Affiliated with Private Equity-Backed DSOs Across the United States [OC]")
Here are 5,000+ dental practices affiliated with corporate dental groups (DSOs), revealing the scale of corporate acquisitions/partnership and private equity involvement in US dentistry.
If you'd like to see if your local dentist is affiliated, I made an interactive version with search functionality that can be found here: https://whoownsmydentists.com
Posted by whoownsmydentists
22 Comments
Data Sources: Data was manually compiled from publicly available sources including DSO organizational listings, industry databases, and regulatory filings:
* – Sources
* NPI registry: [https://npiregistry.cms.hhs.gov/search](https://npiregistry.cms.hhs.gov/search)
* State Level Licensing Boards (Example: Cali – https://search.dca.ca.gov/)
* Validation: DSO’s and Individual dental practice websites and their published privacy policies disclosing DSO affiliations
* Tools:
* Data processing: Python (pandas, geopy)
* PostgreSQL with PostGIS
* Visuals: React, Leaflet, OpenstreetMap Tiles
*Note: This represents a subset of total DSO-affiliated practices as complete coverage is difficult due to fragmented public disclosure requirements. Not all DSO affiliated Dental practice is in the dataset, but every practice in the set is affiliated with a DSO.
I swear my dentist makes me feel like a car in a Nascar race, the fakeness is over the top too. I gotta switch
Wonder if something like this is available for eye doctors? 👓
Private equity is a cancer, slowly ruining industries left and right.
A dentist in my town had been a small practice for years, but a few years ago a new dentist came in and now that built a massive building in front of a Meijer. I was wondering how that could have happened.
Thank you for this please make other versions for different industries
Looking back on my life I’m realizing at least twice a dentist did unnecessary work. Can’t imagine this will help.
Surprised not to see my dentist in there, but I guess they were able to learn the ways of money grubbing all on their own.
*No, I don’t want Invisalign. Just like I didn’t want it in each of my seven previous appointments you tried to get me to do it. Ditto for your cosmetic whitening treatments.*
OP, have you thought of doing the same for veterinary clinics/animal hospitals? Not sure how to source that data.
You should check out Orthodontics next! There is a big push in the industry to consolidate under OSOs like Smile Doctors.
I’ve worked in both corporate and private practice. If anyone has any questions, happy to answer with my experience!
They have completely taken over veterinarian offices. And prices have over-treatment have skyrocketed.
I knew the dentist I went to wasn’t right for me. Kept putting these big TV in my face. Every person that came in would shove that thing in front of me. Not to mention charging 1k for “deep cleaning”. I left for a state funded one and asked them about “deep cleaning” they said cleaning is cleaning.
This is cool but the Zip + radus search function appears to be broken. I tried zip 98117 and every radius selection but it says “no clinics found” despite the fact that there are numerous hits when looking at the map.
I love this. Thank you. I’m a pediatric dentist and searched my area. I noticed that you don’t have some of the DSOs that are pediatric. They’re the worst. D4C is one. They’re also renaming their groups all the time so it’s harder for people to track. DOOs is one. Hopefully you can expand this more.
Another big thing to watch out for is that many of these groups are bundling specialties. The big ones that they are combining right now are pediatric dentists, orthodontists, and oral surgeons.
If you want to support a local dentist, ask if they own the practice and if they have any silent partners, how long they’ve been at the practice and if they live in the area. A lot of times, at the bottom of their web page there will be another business name that is not the practice name…shell entities.
Also, at the dental office, listen to your gut. If it seems like they’re recommending excessive treatment, ask for another opinion at another practice. It takes months to years for most incipient lesions to turn into cavities. So most things you can monitor when they’re small and return in 6 months to get new X-rays and compare growth over time. A good and honest dentist will not recommend treatment the first time they see you for small lesions. Treatment should be based on evidence.
All the recent research supports maintaining natural tooth structure. There are new biomimetic medications that can remineralize non-cavitated enamel. Look for someone who practices minimally invasive dentistry, evidence based dentistry, and the medical management of caries.
Hope this helps others. Also want to express my gratitude to people who support local dentists and their small businesses.
This is missing many, many private equity dentists. I can think of at least many chains that aren’t on here. There’s probably 10x this number.
So are there none in Alaska/Hawaii or do you just suck at mapmaking?
Thanks for making this.
The average person likely doesn’t know how important this data is and how they should be seeking out dentists who are not beholden to a DSO that have multiple lawsuits against them for defrauding Medicare and over prescribing oral surgeries on children.
I worked in a dental lab who sold to dsos and they are soulless ghouls. They press dentists for more and more while blowing their profits on self indulgent plasticity. What’s worse is that private equity is now going after labs. All in all dental is a horrific industry…the good ones though….they are worth their weight in gold. Shout out to all you dentists who keep it real.
Where did you get the data for this? It’s really cool. I would have thought it would be really hard to get a full data set.
Have you done other medical specialties?
I wonder why the bay area has so few pe owned practices.
This is just a population density map
I would be interested in seeing something similar for veterinarianary practices and animal hospitals. I unfortunately had to deal with a bunch last year, and it felt like some of the places were making insanely stupid decisions just to rack up the bill and take advantage of a stressful situation.
It’s a population map. Meh.