Does This Community Need Another Dentist?
A practical Minnesota guide for finding and evaluating dental practice opportunities
By LeAnne Lund | North Star Dental Services
Updated October 2026
The Bottom Line
Some of the most interesting dental-practice opportunities in Minnesota may not be obvious from a population number or a quick search of Google Maps.
A small community may draw patients from several surrounding towns and rural areas. A town may technically have a dental office, but the dentist may only practice there one or two days each week. An established dentist may be approaching retirement without a successor. Patients may already be driving 20, 30 or 40 minutes for routine dental care.
At the same time, a town without a dentist is not automatically a good place to open one.
The better question is: What does the larger service area look like, how much dental capacity already exists, and what kind of practice could this community realistically support?
This guide will help you narrow the map, look for meaningful signs of opportunity and decide which communities deserve deeper research.
Start With a Region, Not a Town
Minnesota has hundreds of communities. Trying to research all of them would be overwhelming and unnecessary. Instead, begin by identifying two or three parts of the state you would genuinely consider.
Think about proximity to family, employment opportunities for a spouse or partner, schools, recreation, housing, access to a regional center, and the kind of life you actually want to build. You do not have to know where you want to open a practice yet. You are simply narrowing the map.
Once you have a region in mind, look at the dental practices in its larger communities and then look outward at the smaller towns surrounding them. You may begin to see clusters of communities without convenient dental care, areas served by only a handful of dentists, or places where residents appear to travel elsewhere for care.
At this stage, you are not trying to prove that another dentist belongs there. You are looking for places that make you curious.
Four Things to Remember Before You Start Counting
Town Population Does Not Equal the Dental Market
A rural dental practice may serve several towns, townships, and the population living between them. A community of 2,000 people can look very different when several nearby towns rely on the same dental providers.
The more useful question is: How many people live within the area this practice could realistically serve?
Office Count Does Not Equal Dental Capacity
A Google Maps search might show three dental offices, but that does not necessarily mean three full-time dentists. One location may have several providers. Another may be a satellite office where the dentist practices only one or two days each week. A specialist may rotate between several communities.
Find out how much dentistry is actually being provided, not simply how many pins appear on the map.
A Service Area Is Shaped by How People Actually Live
Where do residents work? Where do their children attend school? Where do they shop, see doctors, participate in activities, and run errands?
School districts and commuting patterns can be particularly revealing. A group of small towns may belong to one school district, but if most parents commute toward a larger regional center every day, that may also influence where they seek healthcare.
A dental service area is not simply a radius. It is the pattern of how people already move through the region.
There Is More Than One Rural Practice Model
An opportunity does not necessarily need to support one dentist in one office five days a week.
Depending on demand and specialty, the right model might be a full-time independent practice, acquisition of an existing office, a satellite location, or a regional multi-location practice. Some dentists also choose to live in a larger community and commute to a rural practice because the business opportunity makes sense.
The better question isn't simply, “Can this town support a dentist?”
It is: “What kind of dental practice could this service area support?”
Look for Evidence of Actual Dental Demand
Once you have identified several interesting communities, begin looking more closely at the dental care already available in the area.
Start with the practices serving the region. How many dentists actually work there? Are they full-time at that location, or is it a satellite office? Are practices accepting new patients? How far out are they scheduling routine appointments?
Then look beyond the practices themselves. Where do residents go when they cannot obtain care locally? Are patients routinely driving to another community? Are several surrounding towns relying on the same group of dentists?
Federal Dental Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA) designations can provide another useful piece of the picture. Minnesota workforce and demographic data can help you understand population, provider availability, and how the region is changing. The Minnesota Dental Association also maintains rural recruitment resources that can help you explore dental workforce data, shortage areas, wages, community demographics, and other factors that may help identify areas of need. Minnesota’s dental workforce is not evenly distributed. State data has consistently shown fewer dentists relative to population as communities become more rural.
No single number proves that another dental practice would succeed.
Several independent indicators pointing in the same direction deserve attention.
Look for Succession Opportunities, Too
Sometimes a community does not need another dental building. It needs another dentist. Succession is particularly important in rural Minnesota. The University of Minnesota reported in 2025 that 25% of rural Minnesota dentists were over age 65, compared with 15% of dentists in urban areas.
We have seen busy rural practices close because the owner could not find someone willing to take over—not because the patient demand disappeared. That distinction matters.
If a dentist recently retired or a practice closed, find out why. A practice that struggled financially tells a very different story from a healthy practice whose owner simply could not find a successor.
An existing practice may offer something a startup cannot: an established patient base, trained staff, equipment, a functioning facility, and years of community trust.
For some dentists, acquiring an existing practice may be one of the strongest paths to rural ownership.
Can You Find the People You Need to Run It?
Patient demand alone does not create a viable dental practice. You also need the people to help run it.
Look beyond the town itself and consider the workforce within a realistic commuting area. In rural Minnesota, the dentist, employees, and patients may all live in different communities. A practice in a small town may draw team members from several nearby towns or a larger regional center.
Research regional wages and nearby dental hygiene and assisting programs. Talk with existing practices and other local employers about hiring. Consider not only whether you can staff the practice on opening day, but whether you could realistically recruit another hygienist, assistant, or administrative team member as the practice grows.
Staffing deserves to be investigated early—not after you have purchased a building or signed a lease.
Is There a Workable Place to Put the Practice?
Do not assume a new dental practice requires a traditional purpose-built dental building.
We have seen remarkably creative solutions work. Older Main Street buildings can be given new life. Existing commercial spaces can be transformed into beautiful, highly functional dental offices. We have even worked with a practice that turned a former gas station into a stunning dental office with excellent patient access and parking.
In other communities, available land makes new construction practical. We recently helped an orthodontic practice build a new facility just outside town, where there was room to create the space they needed without trying to fit the practice into an existing building.
Smaller communities may also have something densely developed markets do not: room to create—and people who want to help make the project happen.
We have seen municipalities eager to bring a dentist or specialist into their community and willing to help identify available space or make the development process easier. Local economic-development organizations may know about vacant buildings, redevelopment opportunities, available land, local programs, or property owners willing to work with a healthcare provider.
If a community looks promising, don't limit your search to commercial real-estate listings. Call the city, chamber of commerce, or local economic-development office and tell them what you are considering. Ask what might be possible.
Would the Community Help You Succeed?
In a smaller community, a new healthcare provider can be more than another business opening. When residents have been traveling elsewhere for care—or have watched a longtime provider retire without a successor—a new dentist may fill a need the community already understands.
We have seen small communities rally around new healthcare practices. Local residents talk. Families recommend providers to one another. Schools, employers, healthcare professionals, chambers of commerce, and other local organizations can also help a new dentist understand the community and begin building relationships.
That makes local conversations surprisingly valuable. Ask where people currently go for dental care. Is it difficult to get an appointment? Has the community lost a dentist recently? Are families regularly traveling to another town? What do local healthcare providers and employers see?
Word of mouth can be powerful in a small community, but it works both ways. A dentist who provides excellent care, treats people well, and becomes part of the community can build tremendous loyalty. Poor patient experiences can travel quickly, too.
In a smaller market, reputation is not separate from the business plan. It is part of it.
What Kind of Practice Could Work Here?
Not every promising community needs the same kind of dental practice. The goal is not simply to determine whether a town can “support a dentist,” but to understand what type and size of practice the larger service area could realistically support.
For a general dentist starting from scratch, we typically recommend thinking beyond a one-operatory office. One practical starting point may be three operatories—two for the doctor and one for hygiene—with infrastructure and space planned for future growth. Starting smaller can keep the initial investment manageable, but the practice should still have a path to add capacity as the patient base and team grow.
Other markets may call for a different model. An existing practice may be a better acquisition opportunity than a startup. A smaller community might work well as a satellite location served certain days each week. Specialists may be able to serve several communities through a regional multi-location model rather than expecting one town to support a full-time specialty practice.
And practicing in a rural community does not necessarily mean living there. We have seen dentists choose to live in the Twin Cities or another larger community and commute to a rural practice because the patient demand and business opportunity made the numbers work.
A rural dental opportunity is a business model to evaluate—not a lifestyle you have to adopt.
Could You Build the Life You Want Here?
A promising practice opportunity still has to fit the life you want to build. This is also where assumptions about rural communities can get in the way. Rather than deciding what life in a particular area must be like, research the actual place.
Think in minutes, not miles. A community may look far from larger towns on a map while being surprisingly accessible because traffic is light. Check actual drive times to schools, healthcare, shopping, family, airports, recreation, and the places you would use regularly. Thirty miles of open highway can be a very different daily experience from thirty miles of metropolitan traffic.
Investigate healthcare rather than assuming. Look at the hospitals, clinics, emergency care, imaging, specialists, and other services available locally and regionally. Some advanced care may require a trip to a larger medical center, but that does not necessarily tell you what access to everyday healthcare will be like.
Look at what is available, not just what is missing. A smaller community may not have every national grocery, restaurant, or retail chain. It may have farmers markets, local butcher shops, natural-food cooperatives, farm stands, independent businesses, and direct access to locally produced food. Different does not necessarily mean less.
Verify the things that matter to your family. Check schools, childcare, housing, employment opportunities for a spouse or partner, recreation, churches and community organizations, internet, and cell service. For internet and cellular coverage especially, check the actual address rather than making assumptions based on whether it is urban or rural.
Some of these answers will be advantages. Others may be legitimate drawbacks. The goal is not to convince yourself that rural life is better.
It is to compare the life you could actually have—not the labels “metro,” “small town,” or “rural.”
Does This Community Deserve a Closer Look?
At this point, you are not trying to prove that a community needs a dentist or predict exactly how a new practice would perform. You are deciding whether there is enough evidence to justify deeper research.
Look back at what you have learned:
-
Is there convincing evidence of unmet dental demand?
-
How much actual dentist capacity serves the area today?
-
Are patients traveling elsewhere for routine dental care?
-
Is there a succession or acquisition opportunity?
-
Could you recruit the team the practice would need?
-
Is appropriate real estate available?
-
Would a full-time practice, acquisition, satellite, or another model make sense?
-
Does the community fit the life you and your family want?
-
What important questions are still unanswered?
One positive sign is interesting. Several independent signals pointing in the same direction are worth investigating.
You do not need certainty yet. You need enough evidence to decide whether this community belongs on your short list.
Ready to Research a Community?
If a community keeps showing promising signs, the next step is to move from curiosity to real due diligence.
Talk with local dentists and healthcare providers. Contact the city or economic-development office. Look more closely at population and workforce data. Investigate staffing, real estate, competition, succession opportunities, and where patients currently travel for care.
You do not need to have every answer before you begin exploring an opportunity. You simply need to know which questions are worth asking.
And if the opportunity continues to make sense, that is when equipment planning can begin.
North Star can help you think through opening-day capacity, operatories, mechanical systems, new and pre-owned equipment, infrastructure, and how to build a complete practice today while leaving room to grow tomorrow.
Considering an independent dental practice in Minnesota? We’d be happy to talk through what you’re considering and help you identify the next equipment-planning step.