The Hidden Costs Impacting your Clinic’s Profit Margin
If you run a multidisciplinary clinic, you probably use a standard 60/40 fee split. But this model leaves your business highly vulnerable to overhead pressures.
Think about the dental industry. Dental practices aggressively track their overhead, aiming for a healthy benchmark of 55% to 60%. Their national average sits between 59% and 67%.
In contrast, allied health clinics operating on a 60/40 split hand over 60% of their gross revenue to contractors immediately. This leaves you with a maximum of 40% to cover staff costs, rent, supplies, and marketing. If your room utilization drops, this setup often pushes your clinic into negative cash flow.
The True Costs Per Session
Let us look at your true margins using real revenue ceilings. Across Canada, a standard physiotherapy follow up session ranges from $80 to $150, and initial assessments run from $120 to $180. In the mental health sector, the Psychologists' Association of Alberta recommends a fee of $235 per 50 minute session.
Here is exactly what happens to that $235 psychology fee when you pay your associate a standard 60% split:
Contractor Pay: Your associate takes home $141.
Your Apparent Share: Your clinic retains the remaining $94.
It is incredibly common to view that $94 as pure profit. But we must account for your actual overhead costs.
Administrative Support: A Medical Office Assistant in Alberta managing complex billing now earns an average of $27.55 per hour. Even entry level clinical receptionists average $21.94 per hour. When you allocate just 30 minutes of front desk support and patient intake to that session, it costs your clinic roughly $13.75.
Merchant Fees: If the patient pays via credit card, Stripe extracts roughly 2.9% plus $0.30. On a $235 session, that takes away another $7.12.
The Empty Room: If your clinic rooms are not fully utilized, your fixed rent is redistributed onto the sessions that actually happen. In many clinics, this unutilized rent penalty strips another $25 away from every booked appointment.
After those deductions, your $94 clinic share drops to a true take home profit of $48.13. You end up carrying 100% of the operational risk for a slim 20% margin.
When you scale from a solo practitioner to a group practice, your overhead scales on a completely different curve. However, operating with real data gives you the power to lead your business confidently.
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