Clinic KPIs and unit economics — formulas and examples

What are clinic unit economics

Unit economics is profit calculated per unit of the business: one patient, one bed, one room or one doctor. It answers a question total revenue hides: does each new patient make money, or is the clinic growing at a loss?

For an outpatient clinic, the "unit" is usually a patient or a visit. For an inpatient facility, rehab center or care home, it's a bed and a bed-day. For a clinic group, it's a location.

Below are the metrics every clinic should track. All examples are hypothetical — plug in your own numbers.

Financial KPIs: average bill, revenue, margin

Average bill

The average bill shows how much money one visit or one payment brings in on average.

Average bill = revenue for the period ÷ number of paid visits (bills)

Example: monthly revenue of UAH 1,800,000 from 1,500 paid visits. Average bill = 1,800,000 ÷ 1,500 = UAH 1,200.

Break the average bill down by doctor, service line and lead source. If patients from one ad channel have half the average bill, that channel brings in the "wrong" patients.

Profit margin

Margin = (revenue − all expenses) ÷ revenue × 100%

Example: revenue UAH 1,800,000, expenses UAH 1,530,000. Profit UAH 270,000, margin = 270,000 ÷ 1,800,000 = 15%.

Calculate margin for each location separately, with shared overhead (accounting, marketing, management) allocated. Otherwise a profitable location quietly "feeds" a loss-making one.

Marketing KPIs: CAC, conversion, LTV

CAC — patient acquisition cost

CAC = acquisition spend for the period ÷ number of new patients who paid for a service

Example: UAH 120,000 a month on ads and a marketer, 150 new patients came and paid. CAC = 120,000 ÷ 150 = UAH 800.

Divide by patients who came and paid, not by leads. Otherwise CAC looks great but the money doesn't add up. A detailed channel-by-channel breakdown is in our patient acquisition cost guide.

Funnel stage conversion

Stage conversion = number who moved to the next stage ÷ number at the current stage × 100%

Example: 400 leads → 260 booked → 210 showed up → 150 paid for treatment after the consultation.

The weak spot is obvious: if "showed up" sags, work on patient no-shows; if "booked" sags, look at how the front desk handles the first call.

LTV — revenue per patient over the relationship

LTV (lifetime value) is how much money a patient brings over the entire relationship with the clinic.

LTV = average bill × average visits per patient

Example: average bill UAH 1,200, a patient makes 4.5 visits on average. LTV = 1,200 × 4.5 = UAH 5,400.

To calculate on profit rather than revenue, multiply by margin: 5,400 × 15% = UAH 810 of profit per patient.

LTV to CAC ratio

LTV ÷ CAC

On revenue: 5,400 ÷ 800 = 6.75. On profit: 810 ÷ 800 ≈ 1. The second number is the honest one: at this ratio the clinic barely recovers its acquisition cost and only makes money on repeat visits. That's a signal to either lower CAC or work on repeat visits and treatment courses.

Operational KPIs: occupancy, RevPAB, LOS

Occupancy

For inpatient facilities and care homes:

Occupancy = occupied bed-days ÷ available bed-days × 100%

Example: a 30-bed center, a 30-day month — 900 bed-days available. 765 occupied. Occupancy = 765 ÷ 900 = 85%.

For an outpatient clinic, the same is calculated on doctors' slots: booked slots ÷ available slots.

RevPAB — revenue per available bed

RevPAB (revenue per available bed) shows how much revenue one bed generates, accounting for the fact that some beds sit empty.

RevPAB = revenue for the period ÷ number of beds

Example: a 30-bed center earns UAH 2,100,000 in a month. RevPAB = 2,100,000 ÷ 30 = UAH 70,000 per bed per month.

Compare RevPAB across locations: two centers can have the same occupancy but different revenue per bed because of rates and add-on services. The same logic applies to a room or a doctor: revenue ÷ number of rooms or specialists.

LOS — average length of stay

LOS = total days of stay of discharged patients ÷ number of discharged patients

Example: 40 patients were discharged in a quarter, with 2,600 days of stay in total. LOS = 2,600 ÷ 40 = 65 days.

LOS drives LTV directly: with a monthly rate of UAH 70,000 and an LOS of about two months, patient LTV is roughly UAH 150,000. If LOS drops, look at discharge reasons: transfers, family decisions, dissatisfaction.

Doctor utilization and revenue per specialist

For an outpatient clinic, the main operational resource is the doctor's time.

Doctor utilization = booked appointment hours ÷ available appointment hours × 100%

Revenue per specialist = revenue from the doctor's services for the period ÷ 1 doctor

Example: a doctor has 160 appointment hours a month, 128 are booked. Utilization = 128 ÷ 160 = 80%. Their services brought in UAH 420,000; the doctor's percentage is 30%, or UAH 126,000. The clinic keeps UAH 294,000 before room rent, front desk staff and consumables.

Compare doctors on utilization, not just revenue: a doctor with high revenue and 95% utilization is a sign it's time to extend the schedule or hire a second specialist.

Repeat visit rate

Repeat visit rate = patients with two or more visits in the period ÷ all patients × 100%

Example: over six months the clinic had 1,200 patients, 540 of whom came back. Repeat visit rate = 45%.

This metric drives LTV and ad payback. If the repeat rate falls, check whether patients are booked for their next visit right after the appointment and whether those who dropped a course get a call.

Clinic break-even point

The break-even point is the revenue at which a clinic covers all its costs and hits zero.

Break-even revenue = fixed costs ÷ (1 − variable costs as a share of revenue)

Example: monthly fixed costs (rent, salaries, utilities, subscriptions) are UAH 900,000. Variable costs (doctors' percentages, consumables, card processing fees) are 35% of revenue.

Break-even point = 900,000 ÷ (1 − 0.35) = 900,000 ÷ 0.65 ≈ UAH 1,385,000.

For an inpatient facility, it's easier to calculate in beds:

Break-even occupancy = fixed costs ÷ (rate per bed − variable costs per bed)

Example: fixed costs of UAH 1,400,000 a month, a rate of UAH 70,000, variable costs per patient of UAH 20,000. Break-even occupancy = 1,400,000 ÷ 50,000 = 28 beds. If the center has 30 beds, the safety margin is just 2 beds.

KPI table for a clinic director

Receivables often drop out of the KPI set, even though they're what turns paper profit into a cash gap. How to control them is covered in our guide to patient debt and receivables.

How to track clinic KPIs without manual spreadsheets

Manual KPI tracking breaks in three places: lead, visit and payment data live in different systems; the patient's source gets lost between the call and the payment; and nobody allocates shared overhead to locations.

The approach that works:

1. The source is captured with the lead. Ad tags and first touch are saved in the record — the foundation of end-to-end analytics.
2. Every payment is linked to a patient. Then the average bill, LTV and debts are calculated automatically.
3. Expenses are tracked by location, and shared overhead is allocated by a rule (proportional to revenue, beds, or manually).
4. The report updates itself instead of being assembled at month-end.

In 95sales CRM, the director's screen shows revenue, expenses, profit, margin, occupancy and the break-even point by location, plus a month-end forecast — see finance and P&L. Average bill, LOS, LTV, revenue per bed, per patient and per specialist, loss reasons and conversion by source are in analytics, filterable by brand, website and manager.

Common KPI mistakes

• Calculating CAC per lead instead of per paying patient. The number comes out several times lower than reality.
• Watching only revenue. Rising revenue with a falling margin is a warning, not a win.
• Not allocating shared overhead. A location's P&L then looks better than it is.
• Comparing locations in absolute numbers. A 50-bed and a 20-bed center are compared on RevPAB and occupancy, not revenue.
• Too many KPIs. A director needs 8–12 metrics. The rest are for department heads.

For a clinic group, the set is the same, plus location-to-location comparison and a group-level summary — see CRM for clinic chains.