How do I check where a hearing clinic’s new patients come from before buying?

Many hearing clinics grow through their own marketing as much as through referrals. People search for a test, find a clinic, and book. If you buy the clinic, you buy that flow only if it keeps running after the owner steps back. Ask how new patients arrive, how the clinic knows, and how much of the flow depends on spending and accounts the seller controls today.

Trace each source

Ask for new patients by source for several years: the website, paid search, free hearing-test offers, walk-ins, word of mouth and physician referrals. Ask how the front desk records the source and whether anyone checks it. A field that staff fill in loosely is weak evidence. The referral relationships are a separate stream and are worth reading separately.

Marketing spend per patient

Ask what the clinic spends on marketing and divide it two ways: per new patient and per device fitting. Many new patients never go on to a fitting, so the second figure can look quite different. Ask whether spending has risen, and whether the seller has been holding back spend ahead of a sale, and test in the records whether profit looks different as a result.

Who holds the accounts

List every account the intake depends on: the website and its host, the domain name, the ad accounts, the review pages and the online booking system. Confirm in writing that each one is the clinic’s and will move to you. If a marketing agency or the owner personally holds one, ask how it transfers.

How much rests on the seller’s own effort

• Does the seller write the ads, run the website or answer reviews?
• Would an agency be needed to replace that work, and at what cost?
• Do free-test offers bring patients who actually buy devices?
• What happens to intake if spending stops for a quarter?