Heartland Dental

Heartland Dental

Richard Workman, a third-generation dentist, started his first practice in Effingham, Illinois, and built the Heartland Dental model on a simple observation: most dentists want to practice dentistry, not manage HR, billing, or supply chains. The firm became the fastest-growing dental support organization in the country by acquiring established practices and installing a standardized back-office infrastructure while leaving the clinical chair untouched. Heartland now operates across 38 states, supporting thousands of dentists under a structure where the firm handles all non-clinical operations in exchange for a share of practice revenue. Heartland does not report a traditional AUM figure; its scale is measured in affiliated locations and underlying practitioner revenue rather than committed capital. The core investment thesis is a roll-up of a highly fragmented sector — there are roughly 200,000 practicing dentists in the US, most in single-owner practices — with the expectation that centralized procurement, insurance negotiation, and training improve margins. The firm deploys capital through direct acquisitions of dental practices and partners with regional groups to expand into new metropolitan markets. KKR's 2018 investment provided liquidity to early backer Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan and gave Heartland a balance-sheet partner to accelerate acquisitions. The firm subsequently added nearly 1,000 practices over the following five years. Workman stepped back from the CEO role in 2016, naming Patrick Bauer as his successor, though Workman remains Executive Chairman. The firm's team includes a large regional field organization that supports practices across rural, suburban, and urban markets. Heartland also operates a dedicated education arm — the Heartland Dental University — that provides continuing education and leadership training for affiliated dentists, which the firm argues improves both clinical outcomes and retention. In early 2024, Heartland named Ernst & Young alum Jeff Baer as its new CFO (per the firm's official communications, 2024), continuing a pattern of filling senior leadership roles with executives from outside the dental industry. Structurally, Heartland operates as a typical dental service organization: dentists retain ownership of their practices under a professional corporation while contracting back-office functions to Heartland. This separation is driven by state laws that restrict the corporate practice of dentistry, and the resulting liability isolation differs meaningfully from a pure franchise model. The firm's scale gives it negotiating leverage with dental equipment suppliers and insurers that individual practices cannot match, while the decentralization of clinical decisions reduces the reputational risk of a top-down care mandate.