Free Consultation
Book a Free Consultation
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
A sports physiotherapy practice in Hamilton and a multi-discipline team in Charlestown are both measured against sales of clinics like them, then tested on how much of the caseload would stay if the owner stepped back from treating.
An allied health clinic in Newcastle is normally valued by reference to what similar clinics have sold for. Those sales set an earnings multiple, applied after the principal is paid market rates for treating and for running the clinic, while caseload loyal to one practitioner is set aside as personal goodwill that a buyer cannot acquire.
Most often an ownership change is near. A senior physiotherapist in a Lake Macquarie practice wants equity. A national group has offered to buy a podiatry business with rooms in Maitland and Charlestown. The founder of a psychology practice near the university at Callaghan is retiring, and two associates plan to buy her out. A property settlement before the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia's Newcastle registry needs the clinic valued at a fixed date. Or the clinic is moving into a company, and the ATO will expect the transfer to happen at market value.
Other owners are planning further ahead. If you still treat most of the patients yourself, a valuation tells you how much of the clinic a buyer could actually take over: the GP and specialist referral relationships, the clinicians you employ, the booking and billing systems and the rooms. Knowing that early gives you time to move caseload to the team before you sell.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Market Approach leads. Physiotherapy, podiatry, psychology, chiropractic and exercise physiology clinics sell often enough across New South Wales to give real evidence, and a price agreed between an informed buyer and seller is a better guide than a forecast that assumes the diary will stay full.
We use the guideline transactions method. Comparable sales are filtered by discipline first, then by the number of treating clinicians, where referrals come from, location and the lease term left, and value is expressed as a multiple of maintainable earnings. Fees per clinician and per treatment room help test that multiple but do not decide it.
The income approach carries more weight as the principal treats less. In a clinic where employed or contracted clinicians earn most of the fees and the owner mainly manages, earnings should survive a sale, and capitalising them is as reliable as the sales evidence. Where the owner still sees most patients, the sales evidence settles the answer.
We charge the business for two jobs the principal does: treating patients, at a market hourly rate, and running the clinic, at a market manager's salary. What is left after both is the profit a buyer who works in neither role would actually earn, and that is the figure we capitalise.
Treatment tables, rehabilitation gym equipment, shockwave and ultrasound units, gait and orthotic scanners and the fit-out are restated to what they would resell for today. That total sets the floor, and for a clinic with a single practitioner it may be close to the whole value.
Valuations of the same clinic usually part ways at this stage, so each adjustment is set out in the report with the reasoning behind it. In allied health the usual adjustments are:
Referral patterns in the Hunter follow the hospitals and the population. Clinics close to John Hunter Hospital at New Lambton Heights see more post-surgical and specialist referrals, while practices in Charlestown, Maitland or Port Stephens tend to rely on local GPs and nearby families. The University of Newcastle at Callaghan trains allied health clinicians, so many Hunter practices host student placements and recruit graduates locally. Where a clinic shares premises with a gym, a sports club or a medical centre, the terms of that arrangement can matter more to a buyer than the fit-out.
Funding sources need separate treatment. In New South Wales, treatment for injured workers is paid through the workers compensation system that icare (Insurance and Care NSW) runs and the State Insurance Regulatory Authority (SIRA) regulates, and treatment after a road accident through the CTP scheme, which SIRA also oversees. The NDIS and private health funds cover much of the rest. Each sets its own fees, approvals and payment timing, so a clinic that depends heavily on one of them carries the same risk as any business with a dominant customer, and the capitalisation rate reflects it.
The sector is still adding businesses. Health care and social assistance businesses rose 6.7 per cent nationally over 2025 to 2026, to 227,702 (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). Locally, Maitland alone had 6,142 actively trading businesses at 30 June 2025 (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, including Entries and Exits, July 2021 to June 2025). More clinics mean more sales to compare, and buyers compete hardest for practices with several clinicians and steady referral relationships.
We open with the purpose, the standard of value, the valuation date and the records used, and say plainly where those records are incomplete. The report then works through the approaches considered and the method used in each, every earnings adjustment and the reason for it, and a reconciled range showing how much weight each approach received.
If a clinic sale or a partner's exit becomes a dispute, the other side reads the reconciliation first. A report that cannot explain why clinic sales outweighed capitalised earnings, or why the multiple landed where it did, hands an opposing expert an easy point, whether the matter runs in the District Court of New South Wales at the Newcastle courthouse on Hunter Street, the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Sydney, or the Federal Circuit and Family Court in Newcastle. Our reports are prepared under APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services and signed by a certified valuer prepared to explain and defend them.
Ask which assumption about your clinic a buyer's adviser is most likely to dispute, and what evidence supports it. If they cannot point to that evidence straight away, the report is not ready.
If you are deciding whether to sell, or want a number before buy-in talks with an associate, an Indicative valuation is enough. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. An associate taking equity, a sale to a clinic group or finance for a new fit-out calls for a Summary report. A property settlement in the Federal Circuit and Family Court, a dispute between principals, or any matter where another expert will check the figures needs a Detailed report.
Ask who will rely on the number in the end. A court, a lender, the ATO or a second expert all point to the fuller report.
For internal decision-making. Useful for testing an offer, setting an expectation before a negotiation, or deciding whether to go to market. It is not written for third party reliance.
Sets out the approaches applied, the normalisation adjustments made and the reasoning behind the conclusion. The usual choice for a sale, an ownership change or a finance application.
Applies and reconciles all relevant approaches in full. The level required where a court, the ATO, a lender or another expert will review the opinion.
Talk your situation through with a certified valuer before you commit to anything, at no cost.