Professional services
Medical Practice Staffing Cost Calculator
Totals practice staffing, where the support ratio per provider decides throughput.
Result
Clinical and administrative staff are separated because they scale on different drivers. Clinical support scales with provider throughput, since a provider seeing more patients needs more rooming, vitals and follow up. Front office and billing scale with visit volume and with payer mix: a practice with heavy commercial insurance and high denial rates needs more billing capacity than the same practice on mostly self pay, regardless of how many providers it has. Cost per visit is the figure worth tracking over time, because it normalises for growth in a way that total cost does not, and a rising cost per visit with flat staffing usually means throughput has fallen rather than that wages rose.
Get a Free Business AuditHow the calculation works
Each role's count times salary with a labour burden applied for payroll taxes, insurance, benefits and paid time, giving the monthly and annual cost and the cost per provider. The ratio of clinical and administrative support per provider is the figure worth watching, since understaffing caps visits and overstaffing shows up directly in overhead.
What moves the number
- Support ratio per provider, clinical and administrative separately.
- Labour burden on top of salaries.
- Billing function, whether in-house or outsourced.
- Overtime exposure and exemption status by role.
Where this one goes wrong
Understaffing a provider is expensive in a way that does not appear in the payroll line: a provider who cannot run rooms at full throughput produces fewer visits, and the lost contribution exceeds the salary saved. Compare the two directly before cutting. The billing function is the other decision with large consequences, since denial management and follow-up determine net collection, and whether in-house or outsourced is the better answer depends on the volume and the quality of the alternative rather than on the fee alone.
Before you quote
- Compare staffing savings against visits lost.
- Measure clinical and administrative support ratios separately.
- Verify overtime exemption by duties, not title.
Where the rules come from
Questions
About this calculator
Does cutting support staff save money?
Frequently not, because a provider who cannot run rooms at full throughput produces fewer visits, and the lost contribution exceeds the salary saved. The saving is visible in payroll and the cost is spread invisibly across the schedule.
Should billing be in-house or outsourced?
It depends on volume and on the quality of the alternative rather than on the fee. Denial management and follow-up determine net collection, so the right comparison is the net collection each option achieves, not the percentage either charges.
Are clinical staff exempt from overtime?
Not automatically. Exemption turns on duties and salary tests, and many clinical and administrative roles do not qualify however they are paid. Checking against the actual tests rather than the job title is worth doing before an audit does it.
The formula
total = sum of (headcount x salary) x (1 + burden); cost per visit = total / annual visits
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How to use this calculator
- Providers. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 3.
- Nurses and medical assistants. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 5.
- Nurse or MA salary ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $54,000.
- Reception and scheduling. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 3.
- Front office salary ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $40,000.
- Billing and coding. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 2.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to total support staff cost, 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 |
| Nurses and medical assistants | 5 |
| Nurse or MA salary | $54,000 |
| Reception and scheduling | 3 |
| Front office salary | $40,000 |
| Billing and coding | 2 |
| Billing and coding salary | $48,000 |
| Practice management | 1 |
| Practice manager salary | $78,000 |
| Employment burden | 26% |
| Annual collections | $2,400,000 |
| Visits per year | 21,000 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Total support staff cost main result | $710,640 |
| Support cost per provider | $236,880 |
| Support staff per provider | 3.7 |
| Clinical support per provider | 1.7 |
| As a share of collections | 29.6% |
| Support staff cost per visit | $33.84 |
| Employment burden on top of salaries | $146,640 |
Support staff cost $710,640, or $236,880 per provider, at 3.7 staff per provider of whom 1.7 are clinical. That is 29.6% of collections and $33.84 per visit.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only nurse or ma salary, this is what happens to total support staff cost. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Nurse or MA salary ($) | Total support staff cost |
|---|---|
| $27,000 | $540,540 |
| $40,500 | $625,590 |
| $54,000 example above | $710,640 |
| $81,000 | $880,740 |
| $108,000 | $1,050,840 |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Providers
- A number, between 1 and 200, starting at 3.
- Nurses and medical assistants
- A number, between 0 and 500, starting at 5.
- Nurse or MA salary ($)
- A money amount, between 0 and 400000, starting at $54,000.
- Reception and scheduling
- A number, between 0 and 500, starting at 3.
- Front office salary ($)
- A money amount, between 0 and 400000, starting at $40,000.
- Billing and coding
- A number, between 0 and 500, starting at 2.
- Billing and coding salary ($)
- A money amount, between 0 and 400000, starting at $48,000.
- Practice management
- A number, between 0 and 100, starting at 1.
- Practice manager salary ($)
- A money amount, between 0 and 500000, starting at $78,000.
- Employment burden (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 80, starting at 26%.
- Annual collections ($)
- A money amount, between 0 and 500000000, starting at $2,400,000.
- Visits per year
- A number, between 0 and 5000000, starting at 21,000.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Total support staff cost | The headline result. A money figure. |
| Support cost per provider | A money figure. |
| Support staff per provider | A decimal figure. |
| Clinical support per provider | A decimal figure. |
| As a share of collections | A percentage. |
| Support staff cost per visit | A money figure. |
| Employment burden on top of salaries | A money figure. |
Keep going
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