A dental suite is priced by the operatory, not by the square foot. Cost Seg Smart models dental as a first-class property type with its own component library, because the thing that moves the result is a count (how many chairs, and what is plumbed to each one) rather than an area.
The signature fact: the largest swing in a dental study is where the plumbing runs. Above-slab drops serving an identifiable operatory (vacuum, compressed air, water, waste) are equipment connections and follow the equipment they serve. The same services run in or under the slab are generally part of the building and stay 39-year. Two practices with identical chair counts can differ by several points of accelerated share on that one construction decision, and the answer is in the plumbing drawings, not the invoice total.
Modeled range for dental
| Configuration | Modeled accelerated share |
|---|---|
| Bare suite, shell condition, few plumbed operatories | ~17% |
| Typical 4 to 6 operatory general practice | ~19–21% |
| Fully equipped, imaging-heavy or specialty practice | ~22% |
The engine’s quality-control envelope for dental runs 14–26%; that is an outlier guardrail used to flag a study for review, not a target and not a distribution of client results. The 17–22% above is what the component model produces across standardized configurations from a bare suite to a fully equipped one.
What reclassifies in a dental practice
5-year personal property (Section 1245)
- Operatory equipment connections: above-slab vacuum, compressed air, water and waste drops serving a specific chair
- Central vacuum pump, dental air compressor, and the dedicated piping serving them
- Nitrous oxide and oxygen manifolds and distribution to the operatories
- Dedicated branch circuits and receptacles serving chairs, delivery units, intraoral x-ray, panoramic and CBCT units
- Operatory lights, monitor arms, and equipment-mounting infrastructure
- Sterilization-center equipment: autoclaves, ultrasonic cleaners, and their dedicated services
- Amalgam separators, plaster traps, and lab dust collection
- Reception, office and lab furniture, and the practice IT and phone infrastructure
- Interior signage and wayfinding
7-year specialty (Section 1245)
- Operatory and sterilization casework where it is furniture rather than a fixed building component
- Specialty lab benching
15-year land improvements (Section 1250)
- Present only where the practice owns the site: patient parking, drive approach, site lighting, monument signage, landscaping and drainage
39-year structural (Section 1250)
- Shell, slab, roof, permanent partitions and standard interior finishes
- Base HVAC serving the suite generally, rather than a piece of equipment
- In-slab and under-slab plumbing runs, including operatory services routed below the floor
- Lead shielding built into imaging-room wall assemblies
- Building fire protection and general lighting
Owned suite or leased suite changes the question
Most dental practices lease. That does not remove the opportunity, it relocates it: what you are depreciating is the tenant improvement you paid for, not a building you own. Three consequences follow.
- The 15-year land improvement bucket usually disappears, because the parking and site work belong to the landlord. A leased practice therefore reclassifies a similar dollar amount from a smaller base.
- Interior improvements to an existing non-residential building can be qualified improvement property, which carries its own recovery treatment and its own election questions. That analysis sits alongside the cost segregation study, not inside it.
- If the landlord funded part of the build through a tenant improvement allowance, the study has to establish who paid for what before anything is reclassified. Get the allowance terms out of the lease before the study starts.
Illustrative, modeled
On a $900,000 six-operatory build-out with roughly $850,000 of depreciable improvement basis, an accelerated share near 20% moves about $170,000 into short-life pools. This is a modeled figure produced by the component engine, not a completed client study, and the real number depends on the plumbing routing, the imaging package and your CPA’s positions.
Cost Seg Smart produces dental studies from the dedicated dental component library, with per-property figures produced at study time. Fees are published at costsegsmart.com.
FAQ
Does the chair itself get reclassified?
Only if you bought it as part of the property acquisition or the build-out being studied. Equipment you purchased separately is already on your fixed-asset schedule at its own recovery period, and a cost segregation study must not pick it up a second time. Double-counting equipment that is already being depreciated is one of the more common errors in practice-acquisition studies.
Why do two practices the same size get different results?
Operatory count and plumbing routing, in that order. A 2,500 square foot suite with eight plumbed operatories has far more equipment-serving infrastructure than a 2,500 square foot suite with four, and above-slab routing keeps that infrastructure with the equipment rather than with the building.
We are buying an existing practice. Does the building portion still qualify?
If the transaction includes real property, yes, the real property portion can be studied. The purchase price has to be allocated first, because the goodwill, patient list and equipment components of a practice acquisition are not building basis and are handled under their own rules. That allocation is a CPA question and it comes before the engineering work.
Is the lead lining in the x-ray room 5-year property?
Generally no. Where shielding is built into the wall assembly it is part of the structure. Portable or panel shielding that is not integrated into the building is a different question and is evaluated on its own facts.