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A certified valuer will listen to your situation and answer any questions you may have, at no cost.
Whether you run a solo physiotherapy room in Kent Town or a team of podiatrists and exercise physiologists in Modbury, the clinic is compared with sales of practices like it, then tested on how much of the caseload remains when you treat fewer patients yourself.
Allied health clinics in Adelaide are normally valued against sales of similar clinics, chosen by discipline, number of clinicians, referral sources and lease, with the multiple those sales support applied to maintainable earnings. Those earnings are struck after paying the principal a market rate for clinical hours and a separate salary for running the clinic, and patients who are loyal to one practitioner are treated as personal goodwill and left out.
Usually a change in ownership is close. A senior physiotherapist at a Norwood practice has asked for a third share. A national allied health group has made an offer for a podiatry business with rooms in Marion and Glenelg. The founder of a psychology practice in Unley is retiring, and two of her associates intend to buy her out. A family law property settlement before the Federal Circuit and Family Court in Adelaide 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 made at market value.
Some owners start with a blunter question: is this a business, or a well-equipped job? Plenty of South Australian clinics still depend on the founder's own diary, and the answer tells you whether a sale is worth planning. The valuation pulls apart what a buyer would pay for, namely the referral network, the clinical team, the booking and billing systems and the location, from the patients who would follow the principal out the door.
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 practices change hands in South Australia often enough to provide genuine evidence, and a price settled between an informed buyer and seller says more about value than a forecast that assumes the diary will keep filling.
The income approach gains weight as the principal's own caseload shrinks. Where most fees are earned by employed or contracted clinicians and the owner mainly manages, the earnings should outlast a sale, and capitalising them is as dependable as the sales evidence. Where the principal still sees most of the patients, the comparable sales decide the answer.
The working method is guideline transactions. We sort the comparable sales first by discipline, then by number of treating clinicians, where referrals come from, the suburb and the remaining lease term, and express value as a multiple of maintainable earnings. Fees per clinician and per treatment room are used to test that multiple but never to set it.
The principal is costed twice before any earnings are capitalised: at a market rate for each hour of treatment and at a market salary for running the clinic. Splitting those roles reveals the profit an owner who did neither would really take home.
Treatment beds, rehabilitation gym and hydrotherapy equipment, shockwave and ultrasound machines, gait and orthotic scanners and the fit-out are each restated to what they would resell for now. That total is the floor, and for a clinic with one practitioner it can be most of the value.
Two valuations of one clinic tend to drift apart at the normalisation stage, so every adjustment is shown in the report itself with the reason behind it. For allied health clinics the usual adjustments are:
Referrals in Adelaide track the public and private hospitals. Clinics close to the Royal Adelaide Hospital and the BioMed City precinct, to Flinders Medical Centre at Bedford Park, and to the large hospitals in the western and northern suburbs pick up more post-surgical and specialist work. A clinic in Tea Tree Gully, Salisbury or Mount Barker usually leans on local GPs and on patients living nearby. The two carry different risks, so neither serves as a comparable for the other. Around Kent Town, Norwood and the CBD, 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 does.
South Australian funders sit alongside the national ones. Injured workers' treatment is paid under the Return to Work Act 2014 (SA) through the ReturnToWorkSA scheme, road injury treatment through the compulsory third party insurers, and the NDIS and private health funds cover most of the rest. Each sets its own fees, approvals and payment timing. A clinic that leans heavily on one of them carries the same risk as any business with one large customer, and the capitalisation rate reflects it.
The sector keeps growing. The national count of health care and social assistance businesses rose 6.7 per cent over 2025 to 2026 to 227,702, and South Australia finished the year with a net 5,613 more actively trading businesses across all industries (Source: ABS, Counts of Australian Businesses, July 2022 to June 2026, released 18 August 2026). A larger number of clinics gives more sales to compare against, and buyers compete most keenly for practices with several clinicians and settled referral relationships.
Every report begins with the reason for the valuation, the standard of value, the valuation date and the records we relied on, and notes where those records fall short. It goes on to explain each approach looked at and the method applied, lists every earnings adjustment with its reason, and ends in a range with the weight given to each approach explained in everyday language.
When a clinic sale or a partner's exit turns into a dispute, the reconciliation is the first thing the other side reads. If a report cannot say why clinic sales outweighed capitalised earnings, or why the multiple landed where it did, an opposing expert has an easy target, whether the case is heard in the District Court of South Australia, the Supreme Court of South Australia, or as a property settlement before the Federal Circuit and Family Court in Adelaide. We prepare our reports under APESB, APES 225 Valuation Services, and each is signed by a credentialed certified valuer ready to explain and defend the opinion.
Ask them which assumption in your clinic's valuation an opposing expert would attack first, and how they would respond. An answer that is not ready means the report is not either.
An Indicative valuation helps an owner decide whether to begin a sale or start buy-in discussions with an associate. It is for internal decision-making and is not written for third party reliance. A Summary report suits an associate taking equity, a sale to a clinic group or funding for a new fit-out. A Detailed report is the level for a property settlement in the Federal Circuit and Family Court, a dispute between principals, or any matter where another expert will check the numbers.
Think about who will finally read it. If a court, a lender, the ATO or a second expert is likely to scrutinise the opinion, go for 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.