Ask an endodontist how the practice is doing and you'll usually hear a production number. Cases per day, production per month. Production is the number on the schedule, so it's the number everyone watches.
But production is a promise, not a payment. The KPI that decides whether the promise becomes money is your collections ratio: collections divided by net production. It answers one blunt question. Of the dentistry you already did, how much did you actually get paid for?
Why endodontists specifically should watch this
Endodontic practices live on referrals and insurance. That combination creates collection risk that a general practice doesn't feel the same way:
One-visit relationships. Your patient came from a referring GP, had their root canal, and went back. You rarely see them again, which means a missed payment doesn't resolve itself at the next hygiene visit. There is no next visit.
Insurance-heavy case mix. Claims get filed, narrowed, delayed, and partially paid. Every resubmission and every write-down quietly widens the gap between what you produced and what you collected.
High fee per case. When a single case fee slips through the cracks, it isn't a small leak. A handful of unresolved claims can equal a staff member's monthly salary.
How to read your own number
Pull collections and net production for the last 12 months and divide. Then ask three questions:
- Is the ratio itself healthy? A well-run specialty practice keeps this number in the high nineties. If yours starts with an 8, the leak is not small.
- Is it trending? A ratio that drifts down two points a year is a slow leak that compounds. Nobody notices in any single month. Everybody notices at year end, or worse, a buyer notices during diligence.
- Where does the gap live? Aging insurance claims, patient portions never collected at time of service, or write-offs nobody reviews. Each has a different fix, and the fix is usually a process change at the front desk, not more dentistry.
The part that touches your practice value
When it's time to sell, or when a DSO comes calling, buyers don't pay for production. They pay for cash the practice reliably collects. A weak collections ratio doesn't just cost you this year's money; it discounts the multiple on every year of work you've already done, because it tells a buyer your reported numbers overstate reality.
This is also where geography sneaks in. We work with endodontists across Virginia, Maryland, and DC, and the insurance mix shifts meaningfully across those three markets, which changes what a realistic collections target looks like. Comparing your ratio to a national average tells you less than comparing it to practices in your own referral geography.
The 30-minute version
Our free benchmark call covers collections alongside overhead and valuation, benchmarked against endodontic practices, not general dentistry. You leave knowing whether your promise-to-payment gap is normal or expensive.
Book the free benchmark call or get the report emailed to you.