The Complete Guide to Practice Purchase Finance in Australia

Buying a medical, dental, or allied health practice is one of the bigger financial decisions in a clinical career — and the finance side of it involves more moving parts than a standard home loan. Here’s a general walkthrough of how the process typically unfolds.

Step 1: Work out what you’re actually financing

A practice purchase is rarely just “the price of the practice.” Depending on the deal, you might be financing some combination of:

• Goodwill / purchase price — the value attributed to the existing patient base, reputation, and operations
• Commercial property — if the premises are included in the sale, or if you’re buying the building separately
• Equipment — clinical and non-clinical equipment that comes with, or needs to be added to, the practice
• Fitout — if any renovation or refurbishment is needed before or after settlement
• Working capital — a buffer to cover overheads while the practice transitions and settles into new ownership

Our practice purchase cost estimator is a simple way to add these up for a rough total before you get into detailed numbers with a broker or accountant.

Step 2: Understand how lenders assess a practice purchase

Unlike a standard business loan, practice purchase finance is often assessed with some recognition of the relative stability of medical, dental, and allied health income. That said, lenders will still typically want to see:

• The practice’s financial history (usually 2-3 years of financials)
• Your own financial position and income history
• A sense of the transition plan — are existing staff and systems continuing, or changing significantly?

Lenders vary in how comfortable they are with different practice types, locations, and transition structures, which is part of why comparing brokers — not just comparing loan products — makes a difference here.

Step 3: Get your own finances in order

Even though a large part of the assessment is about the practice, your personal financial position still matters. Before approaching a broker, it’s worth having on hand:

• Recent tax returns or Notices of Assessment
• Details of any existing debts (home loan, car loans, credit cards)
• A rough sense of your available deposit or equity

Our broker readiness checklist covers this in more detail.

Step 4: Structure the finance

This is often where a broker adds the most value — deciding whether to structure the purchase as a single practice loan, or split across a practice loan, equipment finance, and a working capital facility. Splitting things up can sometimes make sense from a cash flow or tax perspective (worth discussing with your accountant), while other times a single facility is simpler to manage.

Step 5: Due diligence and settlement

Alongside the finance process, most practice purchases involve legal and accounting due diligence — reviewing the practice’s financials, contracts, staff arrangements, and lease (if applicable). Your broker, solicitor, and accountant will typically all be involved at this stage, and coordinating between them tends to make the process smoother.

What to ask a broker before you start

• How many practice purchases have you financed in the last year, and in what specialties?
• Which lenders on your panel have specific policies for practice purchases in my profession?
• Can you help structure finance across purchase price, fitout, and equipment as a single package?

The bottom line

Practice purchase finance is rarely a single, simple transaction — it’s usually a combination of pieces that need to work together. Getting a broker involved early, even before you’ve settled on a specific practice, can help you understand what’s realistic and avoid surprises further down the track.