A physiotherapy clinic owner can refinance each loan the practice carries. That includes the loan that bought the practice and its goodwill, the value the business holds because patients and referrers choose it. It also includes the fit-out of the treatment rooms and rehab gym, and the equipment loan on a shockwave unit or reformers. Each loan gets its own section here: what cheaper pricing, a stretched or shortened term or different security would do to it. The money arriving from patients, health funds, Medicare and insurers has its own section too.
Is the repayment on the practice you bought from the previous principal still the largest debit leaving the account each month? Are you paying off a shockwave unit and a fit-out at rates you never compared, while workers compensation invoices sit unpaid? Has the overdraft stayed drawn since the rehab gym went in, and has sorting it out kept slipping behind a full caseload?
Registrations are rising: Ahpra's 2024/25 annual report tables for physiotherapists count 47,761 registered physiotherapists, up 6.4% on 2023/24. From the practice purchase to the shockwave unit, every loan in your clinic is one Ardent Capital Group can help you move, and our allied health business loans cover the cash-flow side.
Where a physiotherapy clinic's loans come from
A physiotherapy clinic rarely takes on its debt in one go. Each loan tends to arrive with a step in the clinic's life: buying the practice, building the rooms, then adding the shockwave unit or the reformers.
In a clinic bought from its previous owner, the practice loan paid the retiring or departing principal for the patient list, the referral relationships and the clinic name. Together they make up the practice's goodwill, which sits beyond its plinths and machines. The fit-out loan built treatment rooms with curtain tracks or solid walls, a reception desk, accessible bathrooms and a rehab floor with rubber matting. The equipment loan bought the electric hi-lo plinths, a radial shockwave unit and a therapeutic ultrasound and electrotherapy combination unit. It also paid for Pilates reformers and the cable machine, bikes and racks in the gym.
A physiotherapy clinic can lease its rooms in a medical centre, a shopping strip or a business park. A clinic in leased rooms has no property to borrow against. Its refinance turns on the practice loan, the equipment and what the business earns. Owners who hold their rooms, directly, in a trust or in a self-managed super fund, have a property loan as well. Our physiotherapy clinic premises refinance page covers that loan.
Beside these sit the cash-flow debts. There may be an overdraft drawn while insurer invoices are paid, an ATO payment plan, and cards carrying taping, consumables and course fees. It helps to put the home loan and car finance on the same list. Together they show everything the clinic's owners repay each month.
Example: a leased clinic's three loans, side by side
Each of the clinic's loans takes its own debit from the account each month. This clinic is illustrative. It leases a ground-floor suite with five treatment rooms and a rehab gym. Its owner bought the practice from its founding physiotherapist three years ago.
| Loan | Owing | Rate (assumed) | Months left | Each month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Practice purchase loan | $380k | 9.5% | 48 | $9,547 |
| Fit-out loan | $90k | 12% | 36 | $2,989 |
| Equipment loan on the shockwave unit, reformers and gym | $40k | 13% | 30 | $1,569 |
| Total | $510k | $14,105 |
Rounded, illustrative figures on assumed rates, which are not market rates or offers. Each loan is taken as repaid in equal monthly instalments, with nothing extra left at the end.
$380k is still owed on the practice purchase loan, at an assumed 9.5% over the 48 months left, costing $9,547 a month. That one loan makes up about two thirds of the $14,105 total. The equipment loan finishes first, after 30 months, and the fit-out loan follows after 36.
The clinic also has a $60k overdraft, partly drawn since a run of slow insurer payments. It stays out of the comparison, because it has a limit rather than a term.
How a refinance moves the clinic's repayments
Whatever the clinic decides, a refinance works through three settings on each loan: its rate, its term and the asset pledged as security for it. Seeing them act on the practice loan makes every later option easier to follow.
Take the practice purchase loan. Its first repayment is $9,547 at the assumed 9.5%. About $3,008 of that is interest, the charge on the $380k still owed. The other $6,539 or so is principal, the part that cuts the balance. Over the next 12 repayments the balance falls by about $82k, to about $298k.
This is an amortising loan, which means it runs down to nil by the end of the term, unless it ends in a balloon, a lump sum left to the final repayment. Interest accrues on the remaining balance, so it takes its biggest bite from the earliest repayments and shrinks as the balance does.
- A lower rate over the same 48 months cuts the monthly debit and the interest still to pay. The rate is the lender's decision.
- A longer term spreads the $380k over more repayments. Each debit shrinks, while interest runs for more months. That can suit a clinic carrying a new graduate's wages until their caseload builds.
- Different security changes the pricing. Security is the asset a lender can fall back on should the loan go unpaid. Lenders generally price a loan backed by bricks and mortar below one backed only by the practice or its plinths and machines. That property then secures the clinic's debt.
Refinancing each loan the clinic carries
Each of the clinic's loans bought something that lasts a different length of time: a patient base, rooms tied to a lease, and machines that wear with every session.
The practice purchase loan and its goodwill
For an owner who bought an established clinic, this loan paid for the practice itself. A practice loan funds what the buyer paid for the business: goodwill, the patient list and the clinic's standing with local GPs and surgeons. It can also cover any equipment that came with the sale.
Subject to the lender, a practice loan can be secured without property. It would then rest on a general security agreement over the practice and guarantees from its owners. A general security agreement gives the lender a charge, or claim, over the practice's assets. A guarantee is each owner's personal promise to repay if the practice cannot. The lender records its charge on the PPSR, the national register of security interests in personal property. It does not cover land, buildings or fixtures to land.
Refinancing can shift the practice loan elsewhere or reprice it. It can extend or shorten what is left of its term, and it can fold in the smaller loans. After three years of trading under the current owner, the clinic's own results are on record, in place of the seller's figures from the sale.
Before comparing anything, it helps to look at the payout terms. A fixed-rate practice loan can carry a break cost when paid out before its fixed period ends. A break cost is a fee for ending a fixed rate early. The more rates have fallen since the rate was fixed, the bigger it is. It helps to ask the current lender for a written payout figure, the exact sum needed to close the loan on a set date.
The fit-out on a leased suite
A physio fit-out is built around how the clinic treats patients, and most of it would stay behind after a move. Treatment room walls, hand basin plumbing, joinery, the reception counter and the rehab floor all remain with the suite, so they have little resale value. A fit-out loan can therefore be secured by a general security agreement or carry no specific security.
The time left on the lease, and any option periods in it, show how long the clinic can keep using its fit-out. An option period is a further term the clinic has the right to take up under the lease.
A refinance can change the rate and lender on the fit-out and fold it into a larger practice loan. It cannot change the lease. Check the make-good clause too. It spells out what has to be removed or put back when the tenancy ends. For a physio suite, that can mean stripping treatment room partitions, capping plumbing and lifting gym flooring. Those costs arrive at the end of a lease.
Shockwave, ultrasound and the rehab gym
The clinic's machines and gym equipment earn their keep one session at a time, and each wears out on its own timetable. The equipment loan is secured by the equipment itself, through a chattel mortgage or a similar agreement. With a chattel mortgage, the clinic owns the item and the lender holds security over it until the loan is repaid.
Working life varies item by item. A radial shockwave handpiece has internal parts rated by its maker for a set number of shocks, counted in millions. After that, they are rebuilt or replaced. The combination ultrasound and electrotherapy unit, a real-time ultrasound for pelvic floor and core retraining, the reformers and the gym's racks each wear at their own rate.
It helps to ask your accountant which effective life each piece of equipment is depreciated over. Effective life is the number of years an asset can be used to produce income, taken from the ATO's determination or worked out by the business. It is a tax figure, not a promise of how long the equipment will run. Setting it beside the months left on each loan shows where the two are out of step.
If the shockwave unit will be replaced or rebuilt in two years, a refinance that stretches it over seven leaves the clinic still paying for it alongside its replacement. Paying out the old loan and funding the new unit can be one deal, with the new term set to the new unit's life.
The overdraft and the ATO
A clinic pays its physiotherapists every pay cycle, while insurer, Medicare and Department of Veterans' Affairs payments arrive on their own timing. The overdraft covers the gap between the two.
Converting what is drawn into a term loan clears the overdraft, but also removes the cushion between pay day and the insurer remittance. A refinance can instead resize the limit to match the gap the statements show.
Tax the clinic has fallen behind on can be repaid in instalments under an ATO payment plan. That might be GST, the goods and services tax, or PAYG withholding. PAYG withholding is the tax taken out of staff pay. A super guarantee charge, which applies when staff super is paid late, can sit on the plan too. Most plans keep adding interest on the overdue tax, called the general interest charge, until the last instalment. A lender can consider a business loan that pays the ATO out, subject to its assessment. That charge has not been tax deductible for the clinic since 1 July 2025, whereas business-loan interest may be. Your accountant confirms how this applies to the clinic.
Combining the clinic's loans
Once the loans make sense one by one, the clinic can weigh whether the practice, fit-out and shockwave debts would sit better as a single loan.
Worked example: the clinic's $510k, refinanced four ways
Each option is measured against leaving today's three loans untouched: first by how far the monthly debit moves, then by how much more or less the clinic repays in total.
| Option | Each month | Monthly change | Total repaid | Total cost change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Practice, fit-out and equipment loans kept with their current lenders Today | $14,105 | Starting point | $613k | Starting point |
| Move only the practice loan to a lower rate | $13,924 | $181 less | $604k | $9k less |
| Practice, fit-out and equipment loans as a single 5-year debt | $10,711 | $3,394 less | $643k | $30k more |
| Practice, fit-out and equipment loans as a single 7-year debt | $8,335 | $5,770 less | $700k | $87k more |
| Combine all three against the home over 10 years | $5,791 | $8,314 less | $695k | $82k more |
Rounded, illustrative figures on assumed rates, which are not market rates or offers. Payout figures, break costs, establishment and valuation fees and the overdraft are left out.
Combining the practice, fit-out and equipment loans into one 7-year debt lowers the debit by $5,770 a month, to $8,335. Across its life, the clinic repays $700k, which is $87k more than carrying on as it is.
Only the rate change on the practice loan costs less in total, and it saves the least each month. The combined loans lower the debit by spreading the $510k over more months. The home-secured option has the lowest debit of all. Because of its assumed lower rate, it costs $5k less in total than the 7-year business loan. It also leaves the owner's home securing the debt on the shockwave unit and reformers for years after they leave the clinic.
Which trade suits depends on the clinic's trading, the lease, the equipment replacement plan and the owner's view on the home. The choice is the owner's. Our approach is to gather a payout figure for each loan, then run the options on the monthly debit and the total repaid. We would then present the one the owner picks to lenders whose policy suits a physiotherapy practice. These figures are not quotes or approved outcomes.
What secures the new loan
A physiotherapy clinic can offer several kinds of security, and each has its own trade-off.
- The practice. A general security agreement over the clinic's assets. On a refinance, the old lender's PPSR registration should be discharged, meaning removed from the register, and the new lender registers its own. At payout, it helps to confirm that every discharge has gone through.
- The equipment. A new chattel mortgage over the shockwave unit, plinths, reformers and gym equipment.
- The home. Borrowing against the home generally comes at a lower rate and over a longer term than a business loan. It also makes the family home security for the practice's debt. If the home is already pledged for the practice loan, a refinance can explore freeing it once the clinic's own trading is enough to support the debt. Our home loans for physiotherapists cover the home loan itself.
- Rooms the clinic owns. Standard commercial premises, including medical and consulting suites, can gear to up to 80% of value on a full-doc loan. That percentage is known as the LVR, short for loan-to-value ratio. A full-doc loan is assessed on complete financials and tax returns. Bank terms on commercial property commonly run 10 to 15 years and non-bank terms 25 to 30 years.
Partners, associates and a second clinic
Once a practice has more than one owner or more than one site, the refinance takes in all of them. Where two physiotherapists own the practice together, or a second clinic sits in its own company, the lender looks at every company and every guarantor. The application then carries both companies' financials, every trading account's statements and each owner's personal debts. The Ardent Capital Group team can set out which entity holds each loan today and arrange the finance around that structure. The tax and ownership questions stay with your accountant.
Before you apply to refinance the clinic
Some of what a refinance costs, and how smoothly it runs, is settled before any application goes in, by the clinic's timing and its records.
Where a physiotherapy clinic's income comes from
A physio clinic is paid by patients, health funds, Medicare and insurers, each on its own timetable. That income shows in the bank statements and the BAS, the clinic's business activity statement to the ATO. A practice software report of billings by payer shows each stream on its own.
- Private fees and health fund rebates. Some patients claim on extras cover at the front desk through an on-the-spot claiming terminal. The fund pays its benefit, and the patient pays the gap, the part the fund does not cover.
- Medicare. A patient on a GP chronic condition management plan can claim a Medicare benefit for physiotherapy. It counts toward up to 5 individual allied health services per calendar year, under the plans that started on 1 July 2025. Where the clinic bulk bills, it accepts the Medicare benefit as full payment.
- Workers compensation and compulsory third party. Treatment for injured workers and road accident claimants is invoiced to the insurer. It is paid once the insurer has accepted the claim and processed the invoice, so this income lands later than the appointment.
- The clinic's own cost lines. Pay for physiotherapists on the clinic's payroll follows the Health Professionals and Support Services Award 2020. Those paid as contractors on a share of their billings show up as contractor payments rather than wages.
When to wait, and what to gather
Timing can change what a refinance costs the clinic and what its statements show. Breaking a fixed-rate practice loan can cost more than the new rate saves. In that case, the numbers can be run again as that fixed term draws to a close.
A slow insurer payment may have drawn the overdraft down last quarter. Statements from after it lands show both sides of that gap. It helps to lodge any late BAS or tax return before applying, so the clinic's records are complete.
Much of the paperwork already sits in the practice software, the business accounts and the accountant's files:
- A written payout figure for every loan, and an ATO statement of account if there is a payment plan
- Business account statements for recent months, plus this year's BAS
- The practice entity's and owners' financials and tax returns, last two years
- A practice software report of income by payer and active patient numbers
- The clinic's lease, with the expiry date, any option terms and the make-good clause
- Purchase invoices, with dates, for the shockwave unit, reformers and gym equipment
- Contractor agreements with any physiotherapists engaged that way
- Home loan, car finance and card statements for every owner and guarantor
The lender behind the practice purchase loan may set a scheduled review during its term. Billings since the purchase are the main thing it checks, with any change such as a new graduate building a caseload or the rehab gym opening. Bringing those figures up to date also lets the clinic compare other lenders. Our guide sets out how lenders conduct an annual review of a loan.
Questions physiotherapists ask about refinancing
A physio who works for me wants to buy a share of the practice. Can a refinance be part of that?
A refinance can take that in, subject to the lender. A lender can consider a loan to the incoming physiotherapist for their share while the existing practice loan is refinanced. The ownership split and its tax treatment are for your accountant and lawyer.
The previous owner left part of the price owing to them. Can that be paid out?
It can be, subject to the lender. Vendor finance means the seller agreed to receive some of the price later. The vendor's balance, its terms and any security the vendor holds go on the list with the bank loans.
I'm the only owner and my other two physios are contractors. What goes in the application?
The practice entity's financials and your own tax returns. Contractor payments appear as a cost line, and written contractor agreements set out how those arrangements work.
Does comparing refinance lenders leave marks on my credit file?
A formal application is what shows. It records an enquiry against the borrowing entity and against every guarantor. Limiting the application to lenders that take physiotherapy practices keeps those enquiries few.
My current lender has offered to drop my rate. Should I take that instead?
A repriced loan avoids payout costs and new establishment fees. It helps to set its repayment and total cost against a new lender's offer once those costs are counted.
I'm planning a second clinic. Can new money for it go into the same refinance?
Where the lender agrees, money to fit out and equip the second clinic can sit in one application with the refinance. That application would set out the existing clinic's trading, the new lease and the combined repayments.
The equipment loan on my reformers ends with a balloon payment. Can that lump sum be refinanced?
Subject to the lender, that lump sum can be spread over a fresh term or paid out within a wider refinance. It helps to set the new term against how long the reformers will stay in use.
Could the practice loan move while the equipment loan stays put?
It can. Once an equipment loan is down to its last twelve months or fewer, little interest is left in it. Letting it finish while the practice loan moves can cost less than including it.
We moved rooms last year and the old fit-out loan is still running. Can it come across?
It can come across, subject to the lender. The records will show a loan for a fit-out the clinic no longer occupies, so it helps to explain the move and show the new lease.
What does a refinance cost before any saving shows up?
The costs can include break costs and early payout charges, the fees some equipment contracts apply when finished ahead of schedule. Establishment fees, a valuation where property is involved, legal and discharge fees and PPSR registrations can apply too. It helps to set them against the saving in the comparison.
Talk to us about your clinic's loans
A physiotherapy clinic's loans paid for different things: the practice, the rooms, the shockwave unit and the gym. A good refinance fits each one to the asset it paid for, to how long the clinic can stay in its rooms and to income that arrives from patients, funds, Medicare and insurers on their own timetables. At Ardent Capital Group we assist physiotherapy and allied health owners with practice and equipment refinancing, debt consolidation, working capital and the premises they own. Whenever you want a second pair of eyes on the clinic's loans, we would be glad to sit down and work through them together.
