What Happens to Your Practice the Day You Stop Coming In?

Every dental practice owner eventually stops coming in, whether through a sale, retirement, a new role, or an illness nobody planned for. What happens to patients, the team, and the schedule on that day is decided years earlier by how much of the practice depends on the owner personally. Dr. MaryJane Hanlon sold her own practice in 2014 to lead the clinics at Tufts University School of Dental Medicine. The practice did not survive the transition, and patients called her afterward asking where to go. This article explains what stops in a practice when the owner stops, cites Harvard Business Review survey evidence that most private companies have no plan for an unexpected departure, and shows how to test the Ready question of The Succession Filter™ with a planned week away and a one-page continuity plan.