Why this Clearwater health care CEO says he's sworn off private equity

After a career as a dentist, Knellinger founded Progressive Dental over 15 years ago. He recognized key pain points that prevented dentists turning a profit and started his own business in medical sales. Knellinger started out by providing marketing services, but he later expanded his consulting services to assist physicians in adjusting their business models and fixing the profitability problem. According to Knellinger, Progressive Dental is a specialist in the field of dental implants and can transform a $1 million office into a $9M surgery center. He said that the company has grown without any outside investors or debt leverage and reached $42 million in annual revenue. This explains why private equity continues its investment in the health care sector, investing billions of dollars. According to a Bain & Co. Report, U.S. investors completed 860+ deals in 2022. This was the second-highest level of investing activity. The top 10 deals were worth nearly $32 Billion. In recent years, Tampa Bay has seen a lot of health care investment. Knellinger stated that private equity is driving a significant consolidation of owner-operator practice owners because doctors "don't know what to do." Knellinger stated that the consolidation "is kind of preying upon doctors, ones we haven’t gotten to yet." To get to the point where you can predictably and effectively produce the desired results, you must give up profit and time. He said that profit is not linear. "I am living proof that doing the right things does not always result in maximising EBITDA. However, other Tampa Bay health care professionals and CEOs see great benefits in partnering up with companies that are specialists in healthcare. These investors bring additional oversight, expertise and resources to tech investments and have given small physician practices capital for expansion and new equipment.