Doctor Hiring Readiness Calculator
Estimate whether your practice is financially and operationally ready to add another doctor.
How to use it
Enter your current schedule demand, available treatment space, expected associate cost, and projected production. The calculator will estimate the monthly collections needed for the new doctor to make sense.
Podiatry Practice Mastery
Should You Hire Another Doctor?
Measure whether your current doctors are maximized, whether pent-up demand is real, and whether your practice can financially and operationally support another podiatrist.
Hiring should solve a proven capacity problem
A new doctor should not be the first response to a practice that merely feels busy. This assessment separates four issues: current-doctor capacity, measurable patient demand, financial viability, and operational readiness.
The $1M Doctor collections benchmark
20 patients/day × $200 collected/visit × 240 clinical days ≈ $960,000 collected
1Readiness
2Financial analysis
Stage 1: Hiring readiness
Use approximately the last 90 days for scheduling and demand information.
A. Are your established doctors maximized?
Count doctors established at least 18 months. Exclude newer or intentionally part-time doctors.
%
Enter the percentage of established doctor FTEs collecting approximately $900,000 or more annually.
$
Divide annual collections generated by established doctors by their full-time equivalents. Exclude doctors still ramping up and adjust intentionally part-time doctors to an FTE basis.
%
Completed or occupied slots ÷ available appointment slots.
B. Is there measurable pent-up demand?
days
Look at your schedule and find the third open new-patient appointment. Enter the number of calendar days between today and that appointment. We use the third opening so a single cancellation does not distort the result.
/week
/week
Include genuine overflow, owner panel transfers, urgent access, and backlogged follow-ups.
Consider new-patient requests, referrals, scheduling delays, cancellation lists, and patients you could not accommodate—not simply the number of completed visits.
C. Can your practice support the new doctor?
months
Include compensation, benefits, support staff, insurance, technology, equipment, supplies, and marketing. Count only cash available after protecting payroll, taxes, current obligations, and your emergency reserve.
0Readiness score
Recommended next actions
Stage 2: Associate break-even analysis
Estimate whether available patient demand can financially support the new doctor.
Annual incremental costs
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$
$
$
$
Revenue and demand assumptions
Built-in planning assumption: For every $100 the new doctor collects, the calculator estimates that $70 is available to cover the doctor and the additional hiring expenses.
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/week
/week
Use documented referral growth, marketing results, new services, or a new location—not hope alone.weeks
Typical assumes the doctor collects about 70% of their projected full-year amount during the first year.
Total first-year fixed cost$0
Break-even collections$0
Break-even visits per week0
Documented demand coverage0%
Projected steady-state collections$0
Projected first-year collections$0
Projected first-year gain or loss$0
Visits/week gap or cushion0
How this calculator makes its recommendation
The score combines doctor capacity (40%), measurable pent-up demand (30%), operational readiness (20%), and preliminary financial strength (10%). Hard-stop rules prevent a high score from recommending a hire when current doctors remain materially underutilized or measurable demand is absent.
- The $1M collections benchmark is a Podiatry Practice Mastery planning framework, not an industry-mandated target.
- Third-next-available appointment is used because it is less distorted by a single cancellation.
- The financial analysis assumes $70 of every $100 collected is available after direct patient-care expenses to cover the doctor and added hiring costs.
- The typical first-year option assumes the new doctor reaches approximately 70% of projected full annual collections while completing credentialing, onboarding, and schedule growth.
Research references: MGMA capacity guidance, MGMA access metrics, AMA ramp-up guidance, and podiatry associate guidance.
Educational planning tool: This calculator provides a directional business assessment using the information entered. It is not financial, accounting, legal, employment, or practice-valuation advice. Local compensation, payer mix, overhead, credentialing, employment law, and market conditions should be reviewed with qualified advisors before hiring.
Suggested inputs
- Current average provider days per month
- Current visits per provider day
- Average collections per visit
- New patient wait time in days
- Unused treatment rooms or chair time
- Expected associate salary or draw
- Expected payroll taxes and benefits
- Malpractice, credentialing, and onboarding costs
- Expected ramp-up period in months
- Projected visits per associate day
Suggested results
- Estimated monthly associate cost
- Breakeven monthly collections
- Breakeven visits per day
- Estimated contribution after cost
- Hiring readiness score
- Primary constraint to review before hiring
What your results mean
A new doctor can help a podiatry practice grow when there is enough patient demand, room capacity, and leadership bandwidth. If the breakeven visit target is realistic and your schedule has demand, hiring may be worth deeper evaluation.
If the breakeven target depends on aggressive assumptions, hiring may create pressure before it creates profit. In that case, improve current provider productivity, reduce schedule leakage, or strengthen new patient demand first.
Decide before you hire
PPM helps podiatry practice owners evaluate capacity, associate economics, and the systems needed to support another doctor. Use your result to decide whether to hire, wait, or fix the current bottleneck first.
Educational disclaimer
This calculator is for educational planning only. It is not financial, legal, tax, clinical, billing, or employment advice. Review major decisions with your accountant, attorney, billing advisor, and practice leadership team.
