Clinic owners who track what it costs to win a new patient make considerably more money than those who don't bother

A 2026 survey of UK musculoskeletal clinic owners found the ones who know their patient acquisition cost earn 63% more revenue than the ones who don't, which is the kind of gap that should make anyone running a clinic sit up. This includes practices like yours.

Page updated: 13 Aug 2026

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Clinics that treat marketing spend as something to measure, rather than something to endure, tend to end up considerably better off, and most clinic owners are apparently not doing this.

Original Research	A survey of UK clinic owners linking knowledge of patient acquisition costs to a large revenue gap between those who track it and those who don't.
Source	https://hmdg.co.uk/private-practice-barometer/
Overview	HMDG surveyed 715 UK MSK clinic owners on business performance metrics, including whether they know what it costs to acquire a patient.
Year	2026
Publisher	Brand, HMDG
Relevance to Wellbeing	This is the clearest UK evidence found linking acquisition tracking directly to revenue for licensed clinics, though it's a single self-reported survey rather than independently verified accounts.
Our Verdict	Too early to tell the sample is decent and the methodology is disclosed, but the figures are self-reported and correlation is not the same as cause.
Our Summary	A £127,500 median revenue gap between owners who track acquisition cost and those who don't is not a rounding error. The sample is a specific, named practice type (UK MSK clinics), which makes the finding easier to trust for similar businesses. Only 25.8% of owners actually know this figure, so the finding describes a minority behaviour, not standard practice. Revenue is self-reported, and owners who track their numbers may simply be better at business generally, not just at this one metric.
Our Geo View	UK-specific: the sample, revenue figures and market conditions are all UK-based, so figures may not translate directly to clinics operating under different fee structures or insurance systems elsewhere.

Abstract of wellbeing niches and revenue flow

Recognise how this might impact your practice

Why this might matter to you

Coaching: this matters because if clinics get this much from tracking one number, coaches ignoring their own numbers are probably leaving money on the table too.
Therapy: this matters because private therapy practices run on the same acquisition maths as clinics, even if nobody likes to think of it that way.
Training: this matters because trainers filling classes on hope rather than data are, statistically speaking, doing it the hard way.
Alternative Healing: this matters because healers relying on word of mouth alone still have an acquisition cost, they just haven't worked out what it is.
Clinical: this matters directly, since this is literally the practice type the research studied, and the gap is not subtle.
Retreat/Centre: this matters because centres with higher-ticket offers stand to lose even more than clinics do when they don't know what a new client actually costs.

Where this came from

HMDG asked 715 UK MSK clinic owners about their business metrics and found that most of them have no idea what it costs to bring in a new patient, and that this ignorance is expensive.

HMDG, UK Private Practice Barometer 2026. Directly sourced, not paywalled.

Credibility flags: self-reported survey data, methodology and sample size (n=715) disclosed by the publisher, industry-commissioned rather than independently conducted.

How we scored this

A relevance score out of 100, built from three things: how well it fits the six practice types, how recent it is, and how solid the methodology behind it is.

85%

Practice fit, 100How new, 100How solid, 50

Marked down a touch on how solid the method is, since the figures are self-reported and the publisher has a commercial interest in the outcome, but the practice fit and recency both score well as this is fresh, UK clinic-specific data.

It's worth considering changes to your marketing practices

What this means for your marketing

Work out your own cost-per-acquisition before you spend another penny on adverts.
Put this stat on your next team meeting agenda, before someone asks why marketing spend needs tracking at all.
Say the number out loud to whoever holds the purse strings: not knowing this figure could be costing six figures a year.
Brief your front desk on which channels new patients actually mention, so the number is based on something real.
Review this figure quarterly, not once and then never again.

Who this is most useful for

Practice type	Relevance	Recommended action
Coaching	Medium	Start tracking where paying clients actually come from.
Therapy	Medium	Work out cost per new client before renewing any ad spend.
Training	Medium	Check which channels fill classes, and which just feel busy.
Alternative Healing	Medium	Ask new clients how they found you, every time.
Clinical	High	Calculate patient acquisition cost this quarter, and act on the number.
Retreat/Centre	High	Apply the same tracking to bookings, where the stakes per client are higher.

Best before

Best before: revisit when HMDG publish their next annual barometer, or sooner if you want to check your own numbers against the primary source at HMDG.