For a specialty practice with time for hits and misses, this is a viable plan if you have a few years for the misses. For a GP practice, it's a waste 95% of the time — and you can't afford to waste years on an associate who turns into a dead end. If the associate was ready to buy, they would be shopping for a practice to buy and not an associateship. The inverse applies to them. They could work as an associate for years and the owner might not sell.