Clinic cost-per-hour calculator

Questions this raises

Why not just divide costs by opening hours?

Because it produces a comfortable number that is wrong, and wrong in the direction that makes a loss-making price list look fine. A room booked seventy per cent of the time has to carry its cost across that seventy per cent, and the hours spent on admin were never sellable. Skipping either subtraction can understate the true hourly cost by a third or more.

Should the owner's own time be in the fixed costs?

If the owner treats patients, yes — at what you would have to pay somebody to do that work. Leaving it out makes every price on the list look profitable and quietly turns unpaid hours into the thing subsidising it. It is the single most common reason a clinic is busy and not making money.

Is the floor price what I should charge?

No. It is the line below which the appointment costs you money to perform. What sits between the floor and the price is a judgement, and a different one per treatment — how scarce the work is, whether it leads to more work, and whether somebody else sets the fee.

What if the floor comes out above local prices?

Then one of three things is true: your utilisation is lower than the clinics you are comparing with, your costs are genuinely higher, or their prices do not cover their costs either. Utilisation is the one you can check, and it is usually the one it turns out to be — the same fixed costs spread over more sold hours is a price cut nobody has to notice.