Professional services
Medical Practice Capacity Calculator
Works practice capacity, where the binding constraint is rarely the provider's clock.
Result
Practice administration arithmetic, not clinical or billing advice. Payer contracts, coding rules and the regulations governing patient communication and cancellation policies all vary and change. Nothing here bears on clinical decisions or on how any individual patient should be cared for. Panel size depends heavily on the patient population: a practice with many complex or elderly patients supports a far smaller panel per provider than one with a young healthy population, because visits per patient per year differ by a factor of three or more.
Get a Free Business AuditHow the calculation works
Providers times available clinical hours times visits per hour gives capacity and the revenue it represents at current visit values. The constraint worth identifying is usually not provider hours: rooms, support staff, and the administrative work each visit generates afterwards all cap throughput, and adding provider time against a different bottleneck produces nothing.
What moves the number
- Number of exam rooms available per provider.
- Support staff to room back-up a provider to full throughput.
- Post-visit documentation and administrative time.
- Visit mix and durations.
Where this one goes wrong
A provider with one room runs at a fraction of the throughput of a provider with two properly staffed rooms, because the room turnover rather than the consultation is the limiting step. Identify the actual bottleneck before adding capacity anywhere, since the usual mistake is adding provider hours when rooms or staff are the constraint. Post-visit documentation is the other hidden consumer, and a practice that schedules clinical time to the edge of the day finds the documentation happening unpaid afterwards.
Before you quote
- Identify the true bottleneck before adding capacity.
- Check room and support staffing per provider.
- Schedule documentation time rather than assuming it away.
Questions
About this calculator
What limits a medical practice's throughput?
Usually rooms and support staffing rather than provider hours, because room turnover is the limiting step. A provider with one room runs at a fraction of the throughput of one with two properly staffed rooms, and adding provider time changes nothing.
Where does provider time disappear?
Into post-visit documentation and administrative work, which is substantial and frequently unscheduled. A practice that books clinical time to the edge of the day finds that work happening afterwards, which is where provider burnout tends to originate.
How do I find the real bottleneck?
By looking at where patients and providers wait. If providers wait for rooms, rooms are the constraint; if patients wait while rooms sit empty, staffing is. Adding capacity anywhere other than the bottleneck produces no additional visits.
The formula
annual visits = providers x visits per day x clinic days x utilisation; panel = visits / visits per patient per year
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How to use this calculator
- Providers. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 3.
- Visits per provider per day. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 18.
- Clinic days per year. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 220.
- Visits per patient per year. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 3.2.
- Average collected per visit ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $128.
- Share of slots actually filled (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 88%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to patients the practice can carry, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Providers | 3 |
| Visits per provider per day | 18 |
| Clinic days per year | 220 |
| Visits per patient per year | 3.2 |
| Average collected per visit | $128 |
| Share of slots actually filled | 88% |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Patients the practice can carry main result | 3,266 |
| Visits per year | 10,454 |
| Revenue at this capacity | $1,338,163 |
| Panel per provider | 1,088 |
| Revenue per provider | $446,054 |
The practice can carry about 3,266 patients, 1,088 per provider, producing 10,454 visits and $1,338,163 a year.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only average collected per visit, this is what happens to patients the practice can carry. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Average collected per visit ($) | Patients the practice can carry |
|---|---|
| $64 | 3,266 |
| $96 | 3,266 |
| $128 example above | 3,266 |
| $192 | 3,266 |
| $256 | 3,266 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Providers
- A number, between 0 and 100, starting at 3.
- Visits per provider per day
- A number, between 0 and 80, starting at 18.
- Clinic days per year
- A number, between 0 and 365, starting at 220.
- Visits per patient per year
- A number, between 0 and 40, starting at 3.2.
- Average collected per visit ($)
- A money amount, starting at $128.
- Share of slots actually filled (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 100, starting at 88%.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Patients the practice can carry | The headline result. A number. |
| Visits per year | A number. |
| Revenue at this capacity | A money figure. |
| Panel per provider | A number. |
| Revenue per provider | A money figure. |
Keep going
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