Your financial prep guide for the ADA Scientific Session 2027
The ADA has not announced the dates, city, or format of its 2027 national meeting; it has said it is reshaping the event after the 2026 Scientific Session, which ran October 8-10 in Indianapolis. We will update this page once the ADA confirms its 2027 plans. Sorso is not an exhibitor, sponsor, or speaker at this event. This is an independent prep guide for dental practice owners.
The CFO read
The ADA Scientific Session draws a broad dental audience, and every year practice owners walk the exhibit hall signing up for services without knowing their own overhead rate. The single most useful thing you can do before going is sit down with your P&L for 30 minutes. Know your overhead, your collection ratio, and your production per provider. That foundation makes every conversation at the conference more productive.
— Stanislav Sukhinin, CFA · Founder, Sorso
What this event is
The American Dental Association's national meeting is the profession's flagship annual gathering. It ran for years as SmileCon and, for 2026, as the ADA Scientific Session in Indianapolis.
The ADA has said it is rethinking the format of its national meeting after 2026 and has not yet announced the dates, host city, or structure for 2027. Until it does, this page stands on the prior edition as a reference point.
Whatever form the 2027 meeting takes, the financial preparation for a dental practice owner is the same: know your production, collections, and overhead before you evaluate anything on an exhibit floor. The checklist below applies regardless.
Why this matters for your bottom line
Dental practice overhead is one of the most-watched numbers in the profession, and top-performing practices are noticeably leaner than the average. ADA sessions on practice management can help you close that gap, but only if you know where you currently stand.
DSO acquisition activity continues to reshape the dental market. Understanding how your practice would be valued in today's market informs every strategic decision, whether you plan to sell or stay independent.
Insurance participation decisions have long-term financial implications. Dropping a payer can increase per-patient revenue but may reduce patient volume. The math is practice-specific.
Associate recruitment and retention is expensive. Compensation structures that align with production reduce turnover and improve practice stability.
What to look for
Dental practice overhead optimization strategies with specific line-item targets
Insurance participation analysis: when dropping a plan makes financial sense
Associate compensation models that balance recruitment, retention, and profitability
Practice transition and valuation trends in the current market
Technology adoption ROI for AI diagnostics, digital impressions, and workflow automation
Financial prep checklist
Review these before you go.
Break your total overhead into the ADA standard categories and note which is drifting
Run production per hour for each provider in the practice
Map your collection ratio and identify the gap between production and collections
Inventory your insurance participation list with the reimbursement rate for top procedures on each
Audit associate compensation against ADA survey data
Compare your active patient count and new patient acquisition rate against size-peer practices
Before ADA Scientific Session 2027, get your own numbers straight
Walk in able to check every benchmark on the slides against your own numbers. Three ways owners start with us:
Dental Practice Accounting & CFO
Built for dental & DSO economics
PPO write-offs, provider production, multi-location P&L, and exit prep — done by people who know dental. Accounting from $2,000/mo.
Explore your specialty →Accounting
Healthcare-specialist accounting
Books done right by people who understand clinic finance. Starts at $2,000/mo.
Explore Accounting →Free Assessment
A financial checkup before you go
Four minutes. See where your practice stands so every session is measured against your own numbers.
Take the assessment →
Founder of Sorso and a CFA charterholder. Before Sorso, Stan spent 19 years in corporate finance at institutions including UniCredit and Société Générale — managing a $450M loan portfolio and making senior partner at a major mezzanine lender by 29 — then built a fractional CFO firm exclusively for outpatient healthcare clinics.