In this episode of Dentistry Inspired, host Dr. Sean Robertson sits down with Lisa Nolan, a healthcare financing expert from MNP's professional services team in Ontario. With 15 years of commercial lending experience exclusively in healthcare, Lisa brings an insider's perspective on what it really takes to finance a dental practice in today's market.

This conversation pulls back the curtain on the realities of practice acquisitions and startups, from increased lender scrutiny and longer approval times to the true barriers facing buyers in an increasingly competitive and saturated landscape.

Lisa shares candid insights on debt loads that can reach four million dollars, the shift from "build it, and they'll come" to strategic differentiation, and why being an associate might be more lucrative than you think.

Whether you're considering buying your first practice, planning an expansion, or wondering how today's economics affect practice values, this episode offers the financial clarity and strategic guidance that dental school never taught you. It's an honest, essential conversation for anyone navigating the business side of dentistry.

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Dr. Sean Robertson is the Lead Strategist and founder of Practice Advocate (www.practiceadvocate.ca). Practice Advocate provides freelance strategy services for dentists and private practice owners that includes practice valuations, practice sale facilitation, and concierge practice management coaching that focuses on sustainability, profitability, and fulfilment. Sean is also the Director of Integration, Partnerships, & Business Education at The Confident Clinician, a global evidence-based knowledge research base that integrates artificial intelligence capability to save medical practitioners time in the delivery of the highest level of care (www.theconfidentclinicianclub.com).

Sean has performed more than $300M in Canadian dental practice valuation work and supported practice ownership transfer since 2018. Sean teaches Practice Management for the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Toronto and has guest lectured for the Faculty of Dentistry at McGill University. He writes regularly for Ontario Dentist, The Journal of the Ontario Dental Association and has authored articles for Oral Health, a national journal for the profession of dentistry in Canada.

Dr. Robertson is regularly called upon by the major Canadian banks, dental associations, and dental support organizations to consult on trends, predictions, and perspectives in the Ontario and Canadian dental practice marketplace. He has completed in-person training in communication and the art of negotiation with The Black Swan Group and Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator and author of Never Split The Difference. Sean has lectured at the Ontario Dental Association’s Annual Spring Meeting and the Canadian Dental Association on the topics of practice valuations, acquisitions, sales, and practice management. He contributed to the development of the Career Options Initiative with the Canadian Dental Association.

Sean is the author of two books: One, written for dentists is titled From DEBTistry to Dentistry: A buyer’s guide to successful transitions (2016) and the other, written for Integrative and Functional Medical Practitioners is titled, The Profitable Clinician: Why Clinician Fulfilment is Mandatory For Optimal Patient Care (2025).

Connect with us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/practice_advocate/?hl=en

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Thank you for listening.