Quick answer
Allied health practices usually borrow to hire clinicians before their caseloads fill, fit out rooms or a second site, buy assessment and treatment equipment, and smooth cash flow across Medicare, NDIS, private health and insurer payments. A line of credit or working capital loan suits hiring and payment gaps, equipment finance suits gear, and term or property-secured loans suit fit-outs and acquisitions. Banks like established clinics; non-bank lenders often move faster.
Key points
- Allied health income arrives from many payers at different speeds, and lenders look at the mix as closely as the total
- NDIS therapy price limits for 2026–27 were frozen for OT, speech pathology and physiotherapy and cut for dietetics and exercise physiology, squeezing margins as wages rise
- The biggest cash drain in a growing practice is usually a new clinician's first few months, before their diary is full
- State payroll tax rulings on contractor practitioners apply to many allied health clinics, and lenders and buyers ask about them
An occupational therapist, a speech pathologist and a podiatrist can share a waiting room and a receptionist and still run three very different businesses. One is mostly funded by the NDIS. One sees children whose parents pay privately and claim from their health fund. One relies on older patients referred by GPs under Medicare chronic disease plans. Lenders know this, and they assess an allied health practice less by its discipline than by who pays it and how quickly.
Who pays an allied health practice, and why should a lender care?
Most practices draw on several funding streams. Each behaves differently in the bank account.
| Payer | How it usually arrives | What a lender notices |
|---|---|---|
| Patients paying privately, with health fund claims on the spot | At the appointment, often through HICAPS or a card terminal | Clean, predictable income |
| Medicare (GP chronic condition referrals) | Bulk billed claims, or the patient pays and claims a rebate | Rebates are modest; many clinics charge a gap |
| NDIS participants | Self-managed, plan-managed or agency-managed; paid after the service | Reliant on participant plans and NDIS pricing |
| DVA clients | Claimed from the department after treatment | Steady but bound by DVA fee schedules |
| Workers compensation and motor accident insurers | Invoiced, often with approvals and delays | Can build up a debtor book |
A practice with a balanced spread looks resilient. One that depends heavily on a single funder, particularly a government scheme where prices are set centrally, will face more questions about what happens if that funder changes the rules.
What did the 2026–27 NDIS pricing do to allied health margins?
From 1 July 2026, the NDIA’s Annual Pricing Review left the hourly price limits for occupational therapy and speech pathology at $193.99 and physiotherapy at $183.99, the same as the year before. Dietetics was cut to $178.99 and exercise physiology to $161.99. Psychology was one of the few therapy lines to rise.
Holding a price flat as wages, rent and practice software all get dearer is a margin cut in all but name. For a practice with most of its caseload on the NDIS, that changes how much debt the business can comfortably carry. Lenders who know the sector will look at:
- The share of revenue from NDIS participants
- Whether clinicians are meeting billable-hour targets
- How cancellations and non-face-to-face work, which now have their own item numbers, are being claimed
- Any plan to diversify into private, Medicare or insurer work
A bill introduced in 2026 also proposes requiring NDIS claims to be made within 90 days of service. Whatever its final form, practices with slow invoicing habits should tighten them now.
What do allied health practices borrow for?
New clinicians. This is the big one. A new graduate or a clinician relocating from another practice can take several months to reach a full caseload, even with a waiting list, because of supervision, onboarding and the time it takes to convert enquiries into regular appointments. Wages are paid from day one. Our cash flow gap calculator can help you put a number on that ramp-up.
Rooms and sites. Extra treatment rooms, a gym for exercise physiology or a paediatric sensory room, or a second location closer to a growing client base.
Equipment. Podiatry chairs and instruments, gait and pressure analysis systems, hydrotherapy access, assessment tools, standardised test kits and telehealth set-ups.
Practice purchases. Buying a retiring clinician’s practice, or merging two smaller clinics into a multidisciplinary one.
Matching finance to purpose:
- Wages during ramp-up: a business line of credit or working capital loan
- Fit-outs: a business term loan, or property-secured finance for larger projects
- Equipment: equipment finance
- Buying a practice: a business acquisition loan
- Insurer and DVA invoices: sometimes invoice finance, if the volume is large enough
Waiting list growing faster than your cash? Tell us what you’re planning. Sixty seconds, and your credit file is left alone.
Why do contractor arrangements come up in loan applications?
Plenty of allied health clinics engage practitioners as contractors, collecting fees and paying the clinician an agreed share. State revenue offices have been testing these arrangements against payroll tax law, and their rulings generally cover a broad range of healthcare businesses, not just GP clinics.
Queensland’s ruling on medical centres, for example, applies to dental, physiotherapy and similar practices, and states that the GP exemption doesn’t extend to payments to other health practitioners. Similar rulings exist in other states.
This matters to a lender, and to anyone buying your practice, because an unassessed payroll tax liability is effectively hidden debt. Getting clear advice on how your practitioners are engaged, and fixing anything that needs fixing, puts you in a stronger position before you apply.
How do lenders size up an allied health practice?
Banks generally like allied health. Registered professionals, steady demand and an ageing population all help. For an established clinic with good records, a bank is usually the cheapest lender and well worth asking first.
Where the bank’s process doesn’t fit, non-bank lenders tend to focus on:
- Twelve months of bank statements showing consistent revenue
- Clinician utilisation and the waiting list
- Funding mix and exposure to any single scheme
- Rent, lease term and how settled the premises are
- ATO position, including BAS and super
A paediatric clinic adds three clinicians
Made up to illustrate; any resemblance to a real clinic is accidental. A paediatric therapy practice run by an occupational therapist and a speech pathologist has a waiting list of more than a hundred families. About two-thirds of its clients are NDIS participants; the rest pay privately.
The owners want to hire three new clinicians and lease the vacant suite next door. They estimate it’ll take each new hire around four to six months to become self-funding, and the fit-out of the extra suite includes a sensory room.
The bank is open to funding the fit-out but asks for another set of annual accounts before increasing the overdraft. Instead of waiting, the owners take a working capital loan, sized on their bank statements, to cover payroll while the newcomers settle in, and finance the sensory equipment separately. They also set up weekly NDIS claiming rather than monthly, which shortens the gap between service and payment. A year later, with the new clinicians fully booked, they return to the bank to consolidate on better terms.
When you’re ready to grow the practice
Allied health owners spend their days helping clients reach goals step by step. Business funding can follow the same logic: work out the next step, then match the finance to it.
If that next step needs funding, our enquiry is brief, roughly a minute from start to finish. Submitting it triggers no credit check, so asking costs you nothing. Your information isn’t distributed to a queue of lenders. A team member studies your practice as it actually is, then rings you. Careful, truthful figures on the form are what let us match the right facility the first time round.
Frequently asked questions
Can I borrow to hire more clinicians when I have a waiting list?
Yes. A business line of credit or working capital loan can cover wages while new clinicians build caseloads. Lenders like to see the waiting list, current utilisation and a realistic ramp-up plan showing when each new hire becomes self-funding.
Do lenders count NDIS income the same as private income?
Most lenders accept NDIS income if it shows consistently in your bank statements. They may look at what share of revenue comes from the NDIS and how exposed the practice is to pricing changes or rule changes for participants.
What equipment do allied health practices usually finance?
It depends on the discipline: podiatry chairs and nail drills, gait analysis systems, exercise physiology gym equipment, paediatric therapy equipment and sensory rooms, and telehealth technology. Most of it suits equipment finance, with the gear as security.
Can a sole practitioner get a business loan?
Yes. Sole practitioners commonly use equipment finance and smaller unsecured loans sized on bank statements. Larger amounts for a fit-out or a practice purchase usually need a longer trading history or property security.
My bank declined my allied health practice loan. What now?
Ask the bank for the reason. If it was trading history, security or timing, non-bank lenders may assess the practice on recent bank statements instead, or lend against property. A short-term facility can also tide you over until you're in a stronger position to go back to the bank.