Established practice

Your operational data exists but it's not being used to demonstrate demand, identify growth opportunities, or make the case to investors and commissioners

Most healthcare organisations collect more data than they use. Appointment systems, billing platforms, and referral records all generate signals about demand, profitability, and referral quality that could drive better commercial decisions but typically sit unexamined. The cost is missed growth and mispriced services.

steps: 7; steps
to start: 1 hour; to start

The short answer

Your PMS and billing system already hold the answers to most commercial questions: which services make money, which referrers send the most valuable patients and where capacity is wasted. The problem is that nobody pulls it into one view each month. Start with ten measures, one spreadsheet and a 45-minute monthly review, and make one decision from it each time.

7 steps

Do it yourself: step by step

0 of 7 done

List the commercial questions leadership keeps debating, for example which service to grow, which consultant to recruit, whether to raise a fee, which referrers to visit. Each needs at least one measure.
Time
1 hour
Typical cost
£0
Who does it
Clinic owner with practice manager
Done when: You have five questions on one page, each linked to a measure
Group referral sources into no more than 10 categories (named GP practice, consultant, insurer, Google, website, Doctify or other directory, word of mouth). Group services into 10 to 15 lines. Make referral source a mandatory field from today.
Time
1 day
Typical cost
£0
Who does it
Practice manager
Done when: Every row has a service line and a referral source, and new bookings cannot be saved without one
Use the asset table. Calculate income per service line, income per clinical hour, room utilisation, new patients by source, conversion from enquiry to booking, DNA and late cancellation rate, debtor days and payer mix.
Time
1 to 2 days the first time
Typical cost
£0 using a spreadsheet, £1,000 to £5,000 if a supplier builds it in a BI tool (Solvable estimate)
Who does it
Practice manager or finance supplier
Done when: One sheet shows all ten measures for the last 12 months by month

This problem is Solvable.

Copy this table

Ten-measure monthly commercial dashboard

Free to copy, adapt and use. No sign-up.

Table

Monthly commercial dashboard: [Clinic name], [Month]

#	Measure	How to calculate	Where the data is	Decision it informs
1	Income by service line	Sum of invoiced income per service	Billing system	What to grow or cut
2	Contribution per clinical hour	(Income minus direct costs) ÷ booked clinical hours, per service	Billing + PMS + cost sheet	Where to put room time
3	Room or equipment utilisation	Booked hours ÷ available hours, per room	PMS diary	Timetable changes
4	New patients by referral source	Count of first appointments by source	PMS	Where to spend marketing and GP time
5	Income by referral source	Income from patients first referred by each source, 12 months	PMS + billing	Which referrers to visit
6	Enquiry to booking conversion	First bookings ÷ enquiries logged	Enquiry log + PMS	Reception training, response speed
7	DNA and late cancellation rate	DNAs + cancellations under 48 hours ÷ booked appointments	PMS	Reminders, deposits
8	Debtor days	Outstanding debt ÷ average daily income	Billing	Billing follow-up
9	Payer mix	% income from self-pay and from each insurer	Billing	Pricing and insurer exposure
10	Income per consultant	Income generated through the clinic per consultant	Billing	Consultant support and recruitment

Monthly review agenda (45 minutes)

What moved most since last month and why (15 min)
One commercial decision this month (20 min)
Owner and date for the decision (5 min)
Any data quality problems to solve (5 min)

Decision this month: [ ] Owner: [ ] Review date: [ ]

Avoid these

Common mistakes

Building a 40-metric dashboard nobody reads instead of ten measures that drive decisions.
Leaving referral source as an optional free-text field, so the most valuable analysis is impossible.
Looking at income per service and ignoring direct costs, which hides loss-making services.
Commissioning a BI tool before the underlying data has been cleaned.
Reviewing the numbers without recording a decision and an owner.

Free personal check

Done by Paul Robinson, not software

Answer eight quick questions and I'll show you which decisions your data could already answer

What I need from you

Eight tap answers about your reporting
Your PMS and billing system names

What you get

Where your reporting falls short
The ten measures to start with
The three decisions to tackle first

Within 2 working days

No sign-in, no sales call. I read every request myself and reply on WhatsApp.

Free tools

Check where you stand

Your illustrative estimate

£46,000

Solvable estimate. Rounded to the nearest £500. Updates as you type.

Booked clinical hours per week

Starting figure 100. Change it to match your practice.

Recoverable margin gap per hour

Starting figure £10 (midpoint of £10 (Solvable estimate: for example, moving a tenth of room time from work earning £100 an hour in contribution to work earning £200 an hour)). Change it to match your practice.

Working weeks

Starting figure 46. Change it to match your practice.

Formula

Annual recoverable value = booked clinical hours per week x recoverable margin gap per hour x working weeks

Variables and defaults

booked clinical hours per week: 100
recoverable margin gap per hour: £10 (Solvable estimate: for example, moving a tenth of room time from work earning £100 an hour in contribution to work earning £200 an hour)
working weeks: 46

Defaults only. Change them in the calculator to use your own numbers.

Assumptions and defaults

booked clinical hours per week = 100
recoverable margin gap per hour = £10 (Solvable estimate: for example, moving a tenth of room time from work earning £100 an hour in contribution to work earning £200 an hour)
working weeks = 46

Solvable estimate of the contribution gained by shifting room time and pricing towards better-margin work. About £46,000 a year with these defaults, range £20,000 to £90,000 for a mid-sized clinic.

Benchmarks

5 to 15% of income
Value of mix, pricing and utilisation changes a clinic may find in its first year of reviewing data monthly (Solvable estimate: for example moving a tenth of room time to work with twice the contribution per hour)
Solvable estimate

Every supplier I know who solves this. No one pays to be listed. Where I've worked with them, I say so.

Semble
Practice management software
Practice management and patient records software for private clinics and consultants, covering scheduling, notes, telehealth and payments.
Clinic PMS covering bookings, notes, invoicing, online payments and a patient portal in one place.
Best for: Private consultants, clinics and clinic groups
Price on request
No commercial relationship
Trust Health
Billing and revenue
Medical billing, debt recovery and business support for private consultants and consultant partnerships (LLPs).
Outsourced billing and debt collection for consultants and consultant partnerships, based in Horsham.
Best for: Consultants and consultant partnerships
Price on request
No commercial relationship

Know a supplier I have missed? Tell me Suggest yourself

Data analysis in healthcare is treated as an IT or finance function rather than a commercial one. The people who could use the data to make better decisions aren't the same people who have access to it. The infrastructure to turn raw operational data into a clear commercial picture, dashboards, referral source analysis, profitability by service line, is rarely built deliberately.

No commercial data function, data collected but not analysed
Referral source data never mapped to revenue or value
Profitability by service line never calculated
No dashboard giving leadership a real-time commercial picture
External audiences pitched with narrative not data

services priced or resourced incorrectly because margin data doesn't exist
Strategic: expansion decisions made without demand evidence
investor and commissioner conversations rely on assertion rather than data

What it looks like in practice

Leadership discusses growth but has no shared data picture to plan from
Highest-value referral sources get same attention as low-value ones
Expansion into new specialty or region based on clinical appetite not commercial evidence
Investor or commissioner asks for supporting data and it takes weeks to compile

Paul Robinson

14 years in UK private healthcare

I solve this one for clinic and hospital teams

Want a hand? I'll look at your situation and tell you the three things I'd tackle first.

A few quick questions, about two minutes. I read every one myself and usually reply the same day.

No sales call unless you ask for one. Just a straight answer from me.

I reply personally, usually the same day.

Questions

Frequently asked questions

We do not have a finance person. Can we still do this?

Yes. A practice manager with a spreadsheet can build the ten measures in two days. Bring in an accountant only for service costing.

Our PMS reporting is poor. What then?

Export the raw data and work in a spreadsheet. If you cannot export appointments with status and referral source, that is a reason to review your PMS.

How do we cost consultant time?

Use what the clinic actually pays or retains per session, not the consultant's private fee.

Should we share the dashboard with consultants?

Share the parts about their own activity and referral sources. Their own numbers give you a factual start to the conversation.

How often should we review it?

Monthly for decisions, quarterly for strategy. Weekly is usually too noisy.

Last reviewed: 30 October 2026

The Solvable community

You're not the only one with this problem.

One problem solved every week, on WhatsApp.

Join the community

One message a week. No sales messages. Reply STOP any time.

The short answer

Do it yourself: step by step

1Write the five decisions you need to make1 hour · £0

2Export twelve months of raw dataHalf a day, longer if referral source was never recorded · £0, or a few hours of supplier time if exports are locked

3Clean the referral source and service codes1 day · £0

4Build the ten-measure dashboard1 to 2 days the first time · £0 using a spreadsheet, £1,000 to £5,000 if a supplier builds it in a BI tool (Solvable estimate)

5Work out contribution by service line1 day · £0 to £1,500 with an accountant (Solvable estimate)

6Hold a monthly 45-minute review45 minutes a month · £0

7Build a short evidence packHalf a day · £0