In 2024, the dental industry recorded 161 M&A transactions -- a 10% year-over-year increase and the highest deal count of any healthcare sector. That is not a typo. Dentistry beat out hospitals, physician practices, behavioral health, and every other healthcare vertical in merger activity.

If you are an independent practice owner watching this from the sidelines, you should be paying attention. The software you rely on daily is increasingly controlled by a shrinking number of very large companies, and the implications for your practice are real.

The Big Moves You Need to Know

Henry Schein (Dentrix) acquired Jarvis Analytics in March 2024, embedding predictive analytics directly into the Dentrix ecosystem. They also launched "Linkit," enabling what they call an industry-first seamless digital workflow within Dentrix. The strategy is clear: make the Dentrix ecosystem so comprehensive that practices benefit from keeping everything under one roof.

Patterson (Eaglesoft) partnered with Weave in January 2025, bundling communications and payment processing directly into Eaglesoft. Patterson's subscription revenue grew 27% in fiscal 2024 while perpetual license sales dropped 11%. The direction is clear: they are pivoting Eaglesoft to subscription-only pricing beginning in 2026. If you are on a perpetual license, it is worth planning for this transition.

Planet DDS posted 28% year-over-year growth and now supports more 100+ location DSOs than any other cloud-based dental PMS. With 14,500 practices and 175,000 users, they have become the default platform for large dental service organizations.

Curve Dental carved out a niche in orthodontics and pediatrics with 6-9% market share, and their November 2025 integration with DentalHQ adds automated membership plan management -- a smart play for practices building subscription revenue outside of insurance.

TMR Take: The Henry Schein/Jarvis acquisition is the most strategically significant move on this list. Predictive analytics baked into the market-leading PMS creates a compelling reason to stay -- the data and insights become increasingly valuable the longer you use the platform.

The Private Equity Engine

Behind most of these transactions sits private equity money. Of the 13 most active PE-backed platform companies in healthcare in 2024, seven were in dental care. These are not casual investors -- they are consolidation engines.

The playbook is consistent: acquire a platform DSO, then execute tuck-in acquisitions at 3-6x EBITDA to build scale. While platform-level deals have slowed (the big DSO acquisitions are requiring significant capital), add-on acquisitions continue aggressively, with 137 add-ons in 2024 alone.

What does this mean for software? DSOs standardize on a single platform across all locations. When a PE-backed DSO acquires a practice, that practice gets migrated to whatever software the DSO uses. Vendor choice becomes a DSO-level decision, not a practice-level one.

The DSO Trajectory

The numbers are stark: industry analysts predict that 75-80% of dental practices will be DSO-affiliated within the next decade. DSOs are expanding at an 18.41% compound annual growth rate. This is not a trend -- it is a structural transformation of the industry.

For software vendors, this means their real customers are increasingly DSO procurement teams, not individual dentists. Product roadmaps shift toward enterprise features, centralized reporting, and multi-location management. Solo practitioner needs may receive less priority -- not out of malice, but out of market reality.

TMR Take: If you are an independent practice, the software market is evolving in ways that favor larger organizations. This is not cause for alarm, but it does mean having a thoughtful strategy is important.

What Independent Practices Should Do

1. Prioritize Open APIs

The single most important technical feature for your long-term flexibility is an open API. It means your data is portable and your software can integrate with best-of-breed tools rather than being limited to one vendor's ecosystem.

Open Dental is the gold standard here. Dentrix and Eaglesoft have APIs, but they are more selective about third-party access. When evaluating any platform, ask about API openness and third-party integration support.

2. Own Your Data

Understand exactly what happens to your data if you leave your current platform. Can you export full patient records? Treatment histories? Financial data? X-rays in standard formats? Get this in writing before you need it, not during an active migration.

3. Evaluate Cloud Readiness

The consolidation wave is accelerating the shift to cloud-based platforms. Cloud makes multi-location management easier for DSOs, but it also makes it easier for independent practices to access enterprise-grade features without enterprise-grade IT infrastructure.

If you are still on an on-premise server, start evaluating cloud migration paths now. Not because on-premise is disappearing tomorrow, but because cloud-native features are where vendors are investing their R&D dollars.

4. Build a Software Stack, Not a Software Dependency

Instead of relying on one vendor for everything, consider a modular approach: a core PMS for scheduling and charting, a best-of-breed patient communication tool, a separate imaging solution, and third-party analytics. This gives you flexibility regardless of any single vendor's roadmap or ownership changes.

5. Watch the Subscription Shift

Patterson's move to subscription-only Eaglesoft pricing signals a broader industry direction. Expect other vendors to follow. Budget for recurring software costs rather than one-time purchases, and negotiate multi-year agreements while you can.

The Bottom Line

Dental software consolidation is not coming -- it is here. The 161 transactions in 2024 represent the busiest M&A cycle the profession has seen in more than two decades, and the pace is not slowing.

For independent practices, this is not a reason to panic, but it is a reason to be strategic. Understand your data portability options, prioritize open integrations, evaluate cloud readiness, and stay informed about who owns the software you depend on. The vendors that serve independent practices best will be the ones that continue investing in features and support for practices of all sizes.

Want to see which platforms prioritize independent practices? Check out our software comparison tool for side-by-side evaluations.