Partnership Stories

Why we will never be a DSO.

By Dr. Marcus Sterling March 2026 5 min read

Every few months, another dental group makes headlines for buying up practices and squeezing them for margin. That is the DSO model most dentists have come to distrust. We built Motor City Dental Partners to be the opposite.

A conventional dental support organization optimizes for the balance sheet. Decisions flow upward to people who have never treated a patient, and the practice slowly loses the identity that made it worth acquiring in the first place. Patients feel it before anyone will admit it.

The difference is who makes the decisions

In our model, clinical authority never leaves the operatory. The dentist decides how care is delivered, which materials are used, and how the schedule is run. What changes is everything behind the scenes: the billing, the hiring, the vendor contracts, the software headaches. We take those on so the practice can breathe.

We partner with doctors who want to stay doctors, not become administrators.

That distinction is not cosmetic; it is the whole point. A practice that keeps its clinical independence keeps its culture, and a practice that keeps its culture keeps its patients.

What stays with you

  • Your brand, your practice name, and your patient relationships.
  • Every clinical decision, start to finish.
  • Your team and the culture you built.
  • The trust patients already have in you.

The result is a practice that grows without losing itself. That is a partnership worth building, and it is the only kind we are interested in.

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