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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
A solo physiotherapy room in North Wollongong and a team of podiatrists and exercise physiologists in Shellharbour are weighed against sales of clinics like them, then tested on how much of the caseload stays when the principal treats fewer patients.
Allied health clinics in the Illawarra are normally valued against sales of similar clinics, matched on discipline, number of clinicians, referral sources and lease, with the resulting multiple applied to maintainable earnings. Those earnings are struck after paying the principal a market rate for treatment hours and a separate salary for managing the clinic. Patients loyal to one practitioner count as personal goodwill and are left out.
A change in ownership is usually close. A senior physiotherapist at a Fairy Meadow clinic has asked for a third share. A national allied health group has made an offer for a podiatry business with rooms in Wollongong and Dapto. The founder of a psychology practice in Kiama is retiring, and two associates plan to buy her out. A property settlement needs the clinic valued at a set date. Or the accountant is moving the practice into a company, and the ATO will expect the transfer to be at market value.
A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
The Market Approach comes first. Physiotherapy, podiatry, psychology, chiropractic and exercise physiology practices change hands often enough to supply real evidence, and a price agreed between an informed buyer and seller says more about value than a forecast that simply assumes the diary will keep filling.
The weight on the income approach rises as the principal's own caseload falls. If most fees are earned by employed or contracted clinicians and the owner mainly manages, the earnings should survive a sale, and capitalising them is as dependable as the sales evidence. If the principal still sees most of the patients, the comparable sales decide the answer.
In practice we use guideline transactions. Comparable sales are sorted by discipline first, then by treating clinicians, referral sources, suburb and remaining lease term, and value is expressed as a multiple of maintainable earnings. Fees per clinician and per treatment room test that multiple but never set it.
The principal is costed twice before earnings are capitalised, once at a market rate for each hour of treatment and once at a market salary for running the clinic. Separating the two roles shows the profit an owner who did neither would actually take home.
Treatment beds, rehabilitation gym and hydrotherapy gear, ultrasound and shockwave machines, gait and orthotic scanners and the fit-out are each restated to current resale value. The total is the floor, and for a one-practitioner clinic it can be most of the value.
Two valuations of one clinic tend to drift apart at normalisation, so each adjustment is shown in the report with its reason. For allied health clinics the usual adjustments are these.
Referrals follow the hospitals. Clinics within reach of Wollongong Hospital and Shellharbour Hospital, both part of the Illawarra Shoalhaven Local Health District, pick up more post-surgical and specialist work. A clinic in Dapto, Albion Park Rail or Helensburgh leans more on local GPs and on patients living nearby. The two carry different risks, so neither makes a good comparable for the other. Around Crown Street and Fairy Meadow, many clinics share premises with a gym, a sports club or a medical centre, and the terms of that arrangement can matter more to a buyer than the fit-out. The University of Wollongong also supplies a steady source of graduate clinicians and student patients.
Funders add another layer. In New South Wales, treatment for injured workers is funded through the workers compensation system, which SIRA regulates and icare insures through its schemes. The NDIS, Medicare and private health funds cover most of the remainder. Fees, approvals and payment timing differ between them. A clinic leaning heavily on one of them carries the same risk as a business with one dominant customer, and the capitalisation rate reflects it.
The sector keeps growing. Across Australia, health care and social assistance businesses rose 6.7 per cent between 2025 and 2026, to 227,702 (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, June 2026, released 18 August 2026). More clinics means more sales to compare against, and buyers compete hardest for practices with several clinicians and settled referral relationships.
Each report opens with the reason for the valuation, the standard of value, the valuation date and the records relied on, and notes where those records fall short. It explains every approach looked at and the method applied, lists each earnings adjustment with its reason, and finishes with a range in which the weight given to each approach is explained in everyday language.
When a clinic sale or a partner's exit becomes a dispute, the reconciliation is the first thing the other side reads. A report that cannot say why clinic sales outweighed capitalised earnings, or why the multiple landed where it did, gives an opposing expert an easy target, whether the matter is heard in the District Court at Wollongong, in the Supreme Court of New South Wales in Sydney, or as a property settlement under the Federal Circuit and Family Court of Australia. Court experts are bound by the Expert Witness Code of Conduct in the court rules. We work under APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services, and a certified valuer signs each report and is ready to explain and defend the opinion.
Ask which assumption in your clinic valuation an opposing expert would attack first, and how they would answer. If the reply is not ready, the report probably is not either.
An Indicative valuation helps an owner decide whether to start a sale or open buy-in talks with an associate. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report fits an associate coming in as an equity partner, a sale to a clinic group, or finance for a new fit-out. A Detailed report is the level for a property settlement, a dispute between principals, or any matter where another expert will check the figures.
Consider who will read it in the end. If a court, a lender, the ATO or a second expert is likely to examine the opinion, choose 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.