Dental Office Feasibility Study in Alaska

Alaska leans toward dental offices

Alaska's dental record is small but unusually concentrated. The location quotient is 1.66x, so dental offices carry far more weight in the state's SBA lending than in the national book, and the class ranks 4 of 39 inside Alaska, among the state's most financed asset types. In the national ranking of states the count is modest, 42 of 54, because the whole state is small. The file holds 26 loans for FY2017 to FY2026, totalling $23.6 million, with a median of $637,350 that is 1.26x the class median nationally.

Sizes and programs

Half of the loans fall between $440,100 and $1.1 million, a band that reflects what it costs to build out or buy a dental practice with imaging, operatories and equipment, with equipment that may have to be shipped a long way. SBA 7(a) carried 23 of the loans and SBA 504 carried 3. Franchise share is 0.00%, which fits a profession of owner dentists. A dentist borrowing in Alaska is typically buying an existing practice or equipping a new one, and the lender will focus on the practice's collections and the dentist's own production.

Lenders and boroughs

Wells Fargo Bank National Association holds 8 of the 7(a) loans, worth $9.4 million, with Live Oak Banking Company showing 5 loans and $7.6 million, as SBA reports the current holders. Both tallies count loans on the banks' books, past or present, and reveal nothing about requirements. By county-equivalent, Anchorage leads with 10 loans, Fairbanks North Star has 5, Kenai Peninsula and Matanuska Susitna have 4 each and Juneau has 3. The road-connected population centres account for the whole list. Approvals fell between 1 and 5 each year, peaking at 5 in FY2018 and falling to none in FY2026.

What is not published

Loan Analytics withholds both the cancellation rate and the charge-off rate, under its own rule that a rate is not shown when the group behind it has fewer than 30 loans. Neither rate is printed, and neither is treated as zero; a rate shown elsewhere is a floor.

What an Alaska dental study must test

The central question is whether the catchment supports another practice or an acquisition. A study should count dentists and hygienists per resident in the borough, patients on military or tribal health systems who do not use private offices, and the mix of insurance plans, because those determine collections. Recruiting an associate or hygienist to a remote location can be the hardest part of the plan and deserves a line in the budget, as does the cost of freight for equipment. Against a typical loan near $637,350, the project cost should be explained line by line. Coverage should be shown on conservative production per chair, and the appraisal of practice goodwill and any real estate will depend on the same collections.