Become A Partner
Ascendent Health Partners gives you the opportunity to choose how you invest in growing your practice
Taking care of people attached to teeth. It’s the core of our business and why we’re here! Ascendent Health Partners was created in order to make spaces for excellent clinicians to take care of people attached to the teeth while also being passive investors in their own practice. Ascendent Health also rewards our doctor partners in a way that other group practices cannot as they have private equity backing, and demands for investment return that often fly in the face of the things we hold near and dear. Here’s how a partnership with Ascendent Health looks like:
Our Trial Partner agreements look and feel similar to associate contracts at other group dental practices in order to provide an easy opportunity to test drive our model, support group and see if we’re the right partner for your practice needs. The things that feel very similar to other associateships are as follows:
• A base salary
• A lab stipend to defray some of the costs of your labs
• Full coverage of your professional liability costs
• A production incentive program to mutually align interests. When you work hard, both you and the practice are rewarded together
• Medical, dental, and retirement benefits
Some of the things that we believe to be different about our Trial Partner agreements that differ from a traditional associate contract are listed below:
• We’re happy to rip them up! Our Trial Partner agreements are designed to be breakable to allow you to become a Profit Sharing Partner or an Equity Partner in the practice as soon as we’re both ready to do so.
• Generous CE Allowance - We believe the most intelligent doctors are the ones who serve their patients the best. We offer a $10,000 CE budget and encourage you to spend every penny. Our investment in you always turns into better patient outcomes and more success
• Full coverage of your national, state and local professional dues - We believe that a dentist who is engaged in their local professional societies are more likely to stay on the cutting edge of care and represent the group at large in a way that helps us all grow.
After 12 months tenure with the practice, you will become eligible for a profit sharing interest in the practice. This requires no investment dollars to participate in and simply rewards a clinical partner who is not only a great dentist but also a steward of the business. The profit interests come from a willingness to not only produce dental services but also ensure that our overhead targets are being met. Each quarter after all expenses are paid, including the full wages and salaries of everyone on the team, Left over profit above a certain threshold is pooled into a fund and paid out to anyone participating in the Profit Sharing agreement.
Those with equity investment and the risk associated with it are paid out first, but profit dollars above the target are split with our non-equity holding Profit Sharing Clinical Partners. This profit sharing bonus is then paid out over a period of time following the quarter in which they were earned. As your tenure with the company grows, as does the value of your profit sharing account. Details are highlighted in the contract you would sign at the 12 month mark to begin the profit sharing agreement.
24 months after the start of your trial partner agreement begins, you would be eligible to earn into the business with units of equity that you would own. Targets are set for your productivity and after clearing that goal, a certain monetary value which you had earned could be converted into equity in the business. The ownership of shares would grant you rights to distributions paid by the business to investors.
The Equity Partners would be paid out on the first dollar of profit as opposed to the Profit Sharing Partners, who do not receive any benefit until the Equity Partners make a specific return. At the point of sale of the practice, the equity partners would also be paid out from sale proceeds. Ascendent Health allows up to 30% of the practice to be earned out to on site clinical doctors. After the 30% stake has been earned out to on site clinical owner doctors, shares of the practice will no longer be eligible for transfer.
For doctors who have maxed out their investment opportunities at the level of their own clinical practice, the opportunity to invest in the group at large becomes available. The exposure to a larger share of the platform’s equity would allow for a larger share of distributions and a larger share of return on investment at the point of platform sale.