If selling your chiropractic practice in 2025 (or even next year) is on the list of things you’d like to achieve soon, this goal will require thoughtful planning to be a success. Whether you plan to transitioning towards retirement, relocate or pursue your “second act” with a new venture outside of the profession, you will want to take every step to optimize your chances get it right and to avoid common or costly mistakes. So here are our top tips to successful selling your chiropractic practice in 2025.
1. Start with a Comprehensive Chiropractic Practice Valuation
The first step to selling your chiropractic practice in 2025 is to determine its value. Putting a price tag on your life’s work is not an easy undertaking as there is no set formula for what a chiropractic practice is worth.
Undoubtedly, you have heard or seen multiple “rumor mill” or ballpark valuation formulas that attempt to value a chiropractic business. Some say the practice is worth 60-80% of the collections; others claim your business is worth 1x or 1.5x or 2x net. Still others put forward that the last 18, 24 or 36 months of revenue is a primary indicator of practice value.
Just those few formulas point to serious problems. Which formula is best? Are these methods including equipment or accounts receivable? What about businesses that are growing or in decline – does that factor in?
That’s the chief challenge with the rumor mill – two docs discussing value may not be speaking apples-to-apples comparison about the same formula. Therefore they can arrive at a wildly different number for the value of a chiropractic business. Even worse, the process of just putting a price tag on such a big asset and part of your life is an undertaking that can be very personal and therefore subject to emotions that, in many cases, can lead to pricing your practice too high.
In our experience with chiropractic practice sales over the last two decades, we have observed that nearly 80% of the chiropractors who attempted to sell their practice on their own had their practice improperly priced – and ended up not selling at all.
An accurate valuation by an objective third party is therefore the first step to successfully selling your chiropractic practice in 2025. A proper chiropractic practice valuation will ensure that you set a fair price that attracts buyers while also maximizing your return – a “win-win” situation for both of you!
2. Stay Specialized To Properly Position Your Price
Even chiropractors who adhere to the above advice and get a third-party valuation of their practice can make mistakes when pricing their practice. Staying “specialized” can be key component to successfully positioning your practice for sale in terms of price. Here’s what we mean by that:
One common challenge with a practice valuation that’s performed by a general business broker (one who does not specialize in chiropractic, but sells all types of businesses) or an accountant or valuation professional who has little to no experience in chiropractic practice sales. The problem here is that these valuations lack context and knowledge of the chiropractic profession. In other words, the “generalists” don’t have enough experience to determine the value of a chiropractic practice – a very specialized field in healthcare. After all, we’re not dentists, medical doctors or physical therapists – nor can we value our practices like them – if we want to succeed in selling.
Granted, it is certainly possible that someone who knows how to value businesses can plug numbers into a formula. But unless that professional knows the context of chiropractic practice sales, fair market value, trends in the profession or even bank lending parameters – the value can be way off.
Sadly, I’ve seen CPAs and other well-trained professional value chiropractic practices for 5x, 8x or even 10x what the business is probably worth. The chiropractor is of course, happy to here those figures. But no buyer will purchase the practice for a price that is far in excess of fair market value. And because the CPA or valuation specialist isn’t the one to sell the practice – they never know how far off their price is in the “real world” of chiropractic practice sales.
At the time of this writing, online practice valuations are severely limited and can produce a wide range of inaccurate values for your chiropractic business. This is simply because online calculators rely on very small databases to provide information and multiples to use for establishing value. Some online sources compare practice sale data that’s a decade old – which is highly irrelevant to a practice sale today. Others have only a few sales registered in their database and are extremely varied. An accurate practice valuation formula cannot be obtained by looking at a dozen sales in a database that range from $150,000 to $1,500,000 and are all over the country and over the past 10 years. Sadly, that’s exactly how most online valuation tools work and at this point, they just don’t have enough data to be helpful yet.
3. Prepare Your Practice “Curb Appeal” Physically & Financially
As with real estate, creating a positive first impression is vital when listing a chiropractic practice for sale. Here you don’t have to go overboard with upgrades but can keep it simple. Make sure your office is clean, organized, welcoming and decluttered. Simple repairs such as repainting walls or replacing dated furniture can significantly improve a buyer's perception of your practice – but avoid major or costly upgrades since you don’t know what your buyer perceives as valuable. Unlike a house, the value of your practice is in the performance of your business as an income producing asset and so the best thing you can do to prepare your “curb appeal” is to keep the practice running smoothly and profitably.
As such, preparing your practice financials prior to your sale can be as important - or even more important - than doing some cosmetic tidying up. As you might imagine, all buyers will want to see solid financials to support your asking price and show them the financial stability of your practice. Having solid financial records are essential to successfully selling your chiropractic practice in 2025.
If you are considering a practice sale, be sure that your bookkeeper, accountant or CPA is up-to-date with your business financials. Typically, buyers and banks will look at the last three years of financials and practice stats to ensure that the practice performance and revenue justifies the asking price and can cash flow for the purposes of a loan to purchase the business.
4. Understand Chiropractic Buyer Expectations in 2025
The market for chiropractic practices for sale evolves constantly as trends in the marketplace, financing and buyer preferences change. Successfully Selling Your Chiropractic Practice in 2025 requires you to understand and position your practice for what buyers are increasingly focused on.
Here are just a few of the trends we’re seeing in the chiropractic marketplace:
- Buyers are increasing looking for practices located in growing communities – which obviously can change from year to year.
- Low (or zero) downpayment financing is attractive to a wide pool of buyers
- Buyers are seeking practices with opportunities for growth, such as untapped specialty services such as weight loss, nutrition, massage or other services they could easily expand upon or promote.
- Fewer buyers are looking for “fixers” or practices that are in serious decline
- More buyers are seeking sellers who are flexible with post-sale transitions (they may not want you to stay around for years, but few buyers want you out a week after the sale).
5. Plan Your Transition for a Smooth Handoff
Buyers often prefer practices with well-documented processes and smooth transitions. Prepare to assist with onboarding for at least a few months to ease the buyer into their new role. Maintaining staff during this period can also enhance the buyer's confidence in their investment.
As mentioned above, this is a growing trend that we see in chiropractic practice sales. The “sell and switch” concept whereby you sell your practice to a buyer and then stay on after the sale for a defined time period working with/for the buyer is more popular now than ever.
This is great news for the Seller who may not be 100% ready to retire, but wishes to sell and turn over the practice management to a Buyer. But it also requires planning ahead to ensure that the Seller does not wait too long to sell. Because if you are burnt out and want to leave the minute the sale is over, that may not appeal to a buyer who wants you to stick around and help create a smooth transition for a time period after the sale.
6. Capitalize on the Current Market Conditions
The demand for chiropractic practices for sales has been steadily increasing over the last decade and has significantly grown since the pandemic.
Younger chiropractors are coming out of school with significant debt loads and can’t really make a living with low wages that are paid by typical associate jobs. Similarly, those large student loan bills will often deter the young doctor from starting a practice from scratch without any prospects of a reliable income. Therefore, the concept of buying a practice that has an established patient base and track record of excellent owner income is extremely attractive to many smart chiropractors.
In addition, securing a loan to purchase a chiropractic practice is now more possible than ever thanks to new SBA loan programs and a growing number of banks that have an excellent track record for financing chiropractic practices. This is a significant change from as little as a decade ago when many (if not most) practices had to be financed by the seller because few banks would lend to chiropractic buyers.
Finally, practices in urban or fast-growing suburban areas are benefitting from the communities that are growing around them and the increased demand for chiropractors in those communities. As the average age of chiropractors continues to increase, this provides an excellent opportunity for an older chiropractor to sell to a younger DC in a community that’s growing around them – and these sales often command higher prices in these areas.
7. Enlist the Expertise of a Chiropractic Practice Broker
Successfully Selling Your Chiropractic Practice in 2025 and navigating the details or the ups and downs of the typical chiropractic practice sale can be overwhelming without expert guidance – especially since you also have to focus on being a chiropractor and business owner. A professional chiropractic practice broker brings experience, industry connections, and negotiation skills to the table.
A competent chiropractic practice broker will manage everything from listing your practice to screening buyers, ensuring the confidentiality of your sale, assisting your buyer in securing financing to purchase the practice, helping to maximize your business value and minimize stress.
This enables you to focus on running your business while your broker helps market your practice to qualified buyers. Without the assistance of a broker, you would have to become a practice sales marketing expert, skilled negotiator and knowledgeable about how to navigate all the steps of your sale – all while still having to run your business and have a life!
NEXT STEPS
If you are thinking about selling your chiropractic practice in 2025 (or beyond), I hope that you will take these steps to heart.
By focusing on taking good care of your patients and working with a trusted chiropractic practice broker to take care of your practice sale, you can maximize your practice value, minimize mistakes, ensure a smooth transition for you, your buyer and your patients.
Want to learn more about successful strategies to help you sell your chiropractic practice? Check out our FREE ONLINE TRAINING to learn more!
Or if the timing is right to start moving on your practice sale — contact us to have us help you SELL YOUR PRACTICE (click the link for more info)!
