Professional services
Medical Practice Patient Acquisition Cost Calculator
Works what a new patient costs to acquire, where paying for referrals is not an option.
Result
Sales time is included because it is a real cost of winning work even though it never appears on an advertising invoice. Recovering under 100% on the first job is normal in the trades, provided customers come back.
Get a Free Business AuditHow the calculation works
Marketing spend plus intake and onboarding time divided by new patients acquired. New patient onboarding consumes more clinical and administrative time than an established visit, and including that time gives a figure that reflects what the practice actually spends rather than only what it advertises.
What moves the number
- Marketing spend across channels.
- Intake and onboarding time per new patient.
- Conversion from enquiry to arrived appointment.
- Referral sources, professional and patient.
Where this one goes wrong
Payments or anything of value in exchange for referrals of patients covered by federal healthcare programmes are prohibited under the anti-kickback statute, and the rules reach arrangements that look commercial, including marketing agreements with per-patient payments. That means some conventional acquisition tactics are unavailable to a practice and any arrangement involving referral sources needs legal review. On the marketing itself, patient stories and testimonials involve protected health information and require proper authorisation.
Before you quote
- Have any referral-related arrangement reviewed for compliance.
- Obtain written authorisation before using any patient's story.
- Include onboarding time in the acquisition figure.
Where the rules come from
Questions
About this calculator
Can a practice pay for patient referrals?
Not where federal healthcare programme patients are involved. The anti-kickback statute prohibits remuneration in exchange for referrals and reaches arrangements that look commercial, including per-patient marketing payments. Any arrangement touching referral sources needs legal review.
Can I use patient testimonials in marketing?
Only with proper written authorisation, because a patient's identity combined with the fact of treatment is protected health information. Using a story or a photograph without that authorisation is a privacy violation regardless of how positive the patient was.
What is missing from most acquisition figures?
Onboarding time. A new patient consumes more clinical and administrative time than an established visit, and leaving that out understates what acquisition really costs and makes marketing look better than it is.
The formula
acquisition cost = (marketing + sales cost) / patients won
Put this calculator on your site
Free to embed. Paste this where you want it to appear. It stays up to date automatically because it loads from BDEVY.
Please keep the attribution line. It is the only thing we ask in return.
How to use this calculator
- Marketing spend per month ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $3,200.
- Sales time and tools ($). Quoting time, CRM, call answering.
- Leads per month. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 70.
- Share that become patients (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 32%.
- Value of a first visit ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $2,600.
- Gross margin (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 58%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to cost to win one patient, 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 |
|---|---|
| Marketing spend per month | $3,200 |
| Sales time and tools | $900 |
| Leads per month | 70 |
| Share that become patients | 32% |
| Value of a first visit | $2,600 |
| Gross margin | 58% |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Cost to win one patient main result | $183.04 |
| Cost per lead | $58.57 |
| Patients per month | 22 |
| Gross profit on the first visit | $1,508 |
| Recovered on the first visit | 824% |
Each customer costs $183.04 to win, and the first job returns $1,508 of gross profit, 824% of the acquisition cost. The rest has to come from repeat work.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only marketing spend per month, this is what happens to cost to win one patient. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Marketing spend per month ($) | Cost to win one patient |
|---|---|
| $1,600 | $111.61 |
| $2,400 | $147.32 |
| $3,200 example above | $183.04 |
| $4,800 | $254.46 |
| $6,400 | $325.89 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Marketing spend per month ($)
- A money amount, starting at $3,200.
- Sales time and tools ($)
- Quoting time, CRM, call answering.
- Leads per month
- A number, between 0 and 20000, starting at 70.
- Share that become patients (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 100, starting at 32%.
- Value of a first visit ($)
- A money amount, starting at $2,600.
- Gross margin (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 95, starting at 58%.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Cost to win one patient | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Cost per lead | A money figure. |
| Patients per month | A number. |
| Gross profit on the first visit | A money figure. |
| Recovered on the first visit | A percentage. |
Estimating is the easy part
The jobs you never hear about cost more than the ones you mis-measure. BDEVY builds the marketing, systems and automation that bring them in.