Heartland Dental Grows to 1,900 Practices Under Chairman Rick Workman, Generating $6 Billion in Revenue

Rick Workman, the 71-year-old chairman of Heartland Dental, has built the Effingham, Illinois-based company into the largest dental operation in the United States, with 1,900 practices employing some 3,100 dentists across 39 states. 6 billion in revenue and $455 million in earnings, handling payroll, staffing, marketing and supplies for dentistry. 6 billion.

Workman serves as chairman of Heartland Dental, where the average dentist earns $318,000 a year, compared to about $208,000 for general practitioners according to the American Dental Association. The company operates under the dental support organization model, where dentists own the clinical practice while the DSO owns the business infrastructure.

This approach has reshaped the profession: twenty-five years ago, two-thirds of dentists worked in solo offices, according to the American Dental Association’s Health Policy Institute, but today only one-third of practices are solo offices.

Dentistry generates $180 billion in domestic revenue. Workman explained the industry's lack of standards, saying, 'Dentistry is the only industry you can think of that has no metrics. ' He advises younger dentists, stating, 'You’re probably going to make the same mistakes I made ten years ago.

' Workman added, 'Dentistry done normally is reasonably profitable. There are a lot of ways a dentist can go bankrupt. But it’s hard. ' Workman has faced criticism in his profession. He stated that he has received cold reception from others, including people wanting to fistfight him at conferences.

'I’ve had people walk up to me at a conference and want to get in a fistfight with me,' Workman said. 7 billion. In 2023, Workman and his wife donated $32 million to create the Workman School of Dental Medicine at High Point University in North Carolina.

His 1937 Bugatti Type 57S won Best in Class at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 2016. Workman founded WMG Development, a real estate development company based in Winter Garden, Florida, early on. 4 billion in real estate in more than 30 states.

It purchased land, built physical buildings in choice locations, and leased them to Heartland Dental, which recruited dentists. Recent WMG Development projects include Chipotles, Mavis Tire, the Waldorf Astoria Residences in Sarasota, Florida, and a large KFC in Sanford, Florida. 8 billion valuation.

3 billion. 8 million, leaving him with nearly $11 million in personal proceeds.

The group had grown to 29 locations across Illinois under Workman Management Group, employing 21 dentists. In 1982, Workman opened a third office in a different town. Workman soon ran two practices and employed another young dentist, working about 55 hours a week treating patients and another 30 hours handling the business side.

One patient from a town 25 miles away was a banker who offered Workman a loan on favorable terms to open an office there, and Workman accepted. By the next year after opening his first practice, Workman was seeing a couple dozen patients a month from that town 25 miles away. In 1980, Workman opened his first practice in Effingham, Illinois, about 40 minutes from the family farm.

He borrowed $35,000 from his parents and grandparents to set up a two-chair office in a basement location; $35,000 in 1980 is equivalent to $150,000 today. His advertising budget for the first practice was a $15 hand-painted sign on the front of the building, and his goal for the first year was $25,000 in revenue, which was 20% more than the national median family income at the time.

'Twenty-five thousand dollars,' Workman said as his first-year goal.

Workman attended dental school after completing his degree in biological science in 1977 at Southern Illinois University. He transferred to Southern Illinois University after beginning at Olney Central College, a community college about 20 miles from home. A doctor suggested dentistry to Workman.

Workman grew up on a family farm outside Clay City, Illinois, where the farm grew corn and soybeans. His grade school had three classrooms and six students in his class, and his mother was his teacher. His first job was gathering eggs at age 4, and by age 7, he was milking cows.

Summer days on the farm meant Workman sat on a tractor for ten or 12 hours at a stretch. Saturdays involved chores like cleaning manure sheds and baling hay. Workman said his farm experience snuffed out any interest in farming.

Dr. Rick Workman sits in his wood-paneled home office in a gated golf community outside Orlando, Florida.