More dental practices are operating as groups than ever before. And that ratchets up the complexity of managing practice operations and ownership. For example, how will practice income be split and overhead expenses shared? What happens if one of the doctor-owners dies, becomes disabled, retires, or otherwise leaves the practice?

Far too often there’s no written agreement, only a handshake covering how these situations will be handled. That works well—until it doesn’t! Even if you have a written agreement that contains buy-sell provisions, another question arises: How should you fund the departing partner-shareholder’s payout in the event of death?

One option is to simply have the practice corporation* (or remaining shareholders) purchase the deceased shareholder’s shares in exchange for a promissory note repaid over several years (typically 5-7), including the interest at a reasonable rate. While this repayment schedule works well for the buyer’s cash flow, it can present headaches to the deceased shareholder’s estate. The long-term payout requires the estate to remain open for