Allied health finance for physio, OT, podiatry and psychology clinics

Allied health clinics are some of the most varied businesses in health care. A physio clinic might run treatment rooms, a rehab gym and a Pilates studio from one site. An OT practice might spend most of its week on the road visiting clients’ homes and schools. A psychology practice might need little more than quiet, well-soundproofed rooms and good software. What they share is a mix of payers, a reliance on skilled practitioners and a need for space that works.

Which clinics does this cover?

• Physiotherapy and sports medicine
• Occupational therapy
• Podiatry
• Psychology and counselling practices
• Speech pathology
• Chiropractic and osteopathy
• Exercise physiology and clinical Pilates
• Dietetics and multidisciplinary clinics

What can allied health finance fund?

Purpose	Examples
Fit-out	Treatment rooms, soundproofing for psychology rooms, accessible bathrooms, reception
Rehab and gym space	Reformers, treadmills, strength equipment, flooring, mirrors
Clinical equipment	Shockwave, ultrasound, gait analysis, orthotic scanning and milling
Vehicles	Cars for mobile OT, physio and speech clinicians
New locations	A satellite clinic or a room inside a medical centre or gym
Working capital	Wages while insurer and scheme invoices are paid

Why is allied health cash flow uneven?

Most clinics are paid by several different sources, each on its own timetable:

• Private clients usually pay on the day, often claiming from their health fund on the spot.
• Medicare-referred services may be bulk billed or privately billed with a rebate.
• NDIS work is claimed after the support is delivered, either from the NDIA or through a plan manager. The NDIA’s guide to getting paid says valid claims from recorded “my providers” are usually paid within 2 to 3 business days, and others can take about 10 business days.
• Compensable schemes and insurers, such as workers compensation and motor accident schemes, are invoiced and can take longer to pay.

A clinic that grows its NDIS or compensable work often sees revenue rise while the bank balance falls, because more money is sitting in receivables. The claims gap calculator estimates how much of your cash is waiting on payers at any one time.

What do lenders look at?

1. Turnover and trend from twelve months or more of bank statements.
2. Payer mix. A healthy spread across payers is reassuring. Heavy reliance on one referrer or scheme is a risk.
3. Practitioner team. How many clinicians, how long they’ve stayed, and how they’re engaged.
4. Room utilisation. Spare capacity is a growth story. Full rooms may justify a new site.
5. Lease. Term and options, and whether it suits your plans.
6. Debtors. For insurer-heavy clinics, how old the outstanding invoices are.

Secured or unsecured?

Property-secured loans from $20,000 to $5,000,000, as first mortgages, second mortgages or caveats over residential or commercial property, suit a new clinic build or buying premises. Unsecured, cash-flow and line-of-credit options for trading clinics typically sit between $5,000 and $500,000, calculated from turnover and banking history. They suit equipment, a gym upgrade or a buffer for slow payers. Credit hiccups and tax owed to the ATO get a fair hearing, one file at a time.

If you’d like to know which suits your clinic, start a short enquiry. There’s no credit check at that stage.

Choosing a location for a new clinic

business.gov.au’s guidance on choosing a business location suggests weighing up customer access, visibility, costs and the competition nearby. For allied health, add referral relationships: a clinic near GPs, specialists or a hospital often fills faster. Parking and accessibility matter more than in most retail, because many clients arrive injured or with mobility needs. Our page on opening a second clinic covers the finance side of a new location.

An illustrative example

Illustrative only. A physiotherapy clinic with four treatment rooms is fully booked most weekdays. The owners want to lease the adjoining space for a rehab gym and two more rooms, and to add a clinical Pilates program. The fit-out, reformers and gym equipment together are more than the clinic would like to spend from cash. A secured loan over the owners’ home could fund the fit-out, and equipment finance could cover the reformers, spreading repayments across the years the equipment will earn.

Contractors, employees and payroll tax

Many allied health clinics engage practitioners as contractors. How those arrangements are structured can affect payroll tax, super and the income a lender counts. State revenue offices have focused heavily on medical centres in recent years, and some of the same principles can apply more broadly. Our payroll tax guide for medical centres explains the issue. Get specific advice from your accountant before relying on any structure.

Mobile and outreach clinicians

Plenty of allied health work happens outside the clinic. Occupational therapists assess homes and workplaces, speech pathologists visit schools and early learning centres, and physios see clients in aged care homes. For these practices the car is the consulting room, and the laptop is the filing cabinet. Finance for a mobile model tends to focus on reliable vehicles, portable assessment equipment and the systems that let clinicians finish notes and invoices on the road. Because travel time is unbilled, lenders also like to see that your fees and scheduling cover it. A tidy weekly route and prompt invoicing do as much for cash flow as any facility.

See if your clinic qualifies

You help people move better, think clearer and live more independently. Getting finance shouldn’t be the hard part. The enquiry takes around 60 seconds and doesn’t involve a credit check. Your details stay with one team rather than being passed around, and a person who understands multi-payer clinics calls you to talk it through.

Please be accurate on the form (the amount, what it’s for, your state and whether there’s property available) so the first conversation gets you to the right option.

See if my clinic qualifies →