Patient acquisition cost (PAC) is what your practice spends to gain one new patient. It is the number that tells you whether a marketing channel is worth keeping, and it is easy to get wrong by leaving costs out or by counting the wrong “patients”. This guide shows practice managers at dental, eye and aesthetic practices how to calculate it with their own numbers, per channel, and how to use it.
- SearchAn adult looks for care near them.
- Your pageWhat you treat, who sees them, one way to book.
- Call or formThey call or send a request.
- Front deskBooks the visit and never guesses a cause.
- Clinical teamThe clinician decides the plan.
The formula
PAC = total acquisition cost for a period / new patients gained in that period
Both halves need a clear definition before the result means anything. Decide them once, write them down, and use the same definitions every month so the numbers can be compared.
What to count as cost
- Media and fees: ad spend, directory and listing fees, referral service or lead fees, sponsorships, printed mailers.
- Outside help: agency or freelancer fees for ads, SEO, content or design, if the work is aimed at new patients.
- Tools: call tracking, review tools, scheduling or form software, the share of your website costs you assign to new patient work.
- Staff time: hours spent on marketing and on answering and following up new patient requests, times a loaded hourly cost (wage plus payroll taxes and benefits). This is the line most practices leave out, and often a large one.
- Promotions: the cost of any new patient offer, such as a reduced consultation fee, if you run one. Check your state and professional rules before advertising offers.
Leave out costs aimed at existing patients (recall reminders, loyalty programs), general overhead that would exist anyway, and recruiting costs. Mixing those in makes PAC look worse than it is and hides which channel is actually working.
What to count as a new patient
Choose one definition and stick to it. Common choices, from loosest to strictest:
- a first consultation booked,
- a first consultation attended,
- a treatment plan accepted.
“Attended” is a good default: it is easy to check in your practice management system, and it ignores no-shows. If treatment acceptance takes weeks, you can track it as a second, later number. Whatever you choose, do not count leads or form fills as patients: that gives a cost per lead, which is a different and much lower number.
A worked example
The figures below are made up to show the arithmetic. They are not benchmarks; use your own.
| Line (one month, one channel) | Amount |
|---|---|
| Ad spend | $2,000 |
| Call tracking tool | $50 |
| Staff time: 20 hours at a $30 loaded hourly cost | $600 |
| Total acquisition cost | $2,650 |
| New patients who attended a first consultation | 10 |
| PAC | $265 |
Without the staff time line, the same channel would show $205 per patient. That gap is why the staff line matters when you compare a channel your team runs by hand with one that costs more in fees but less in time.
Calculate it per channel, not just in total
A practice-wide PAC hides the answer you actually need: which channel to grow and which to cut. To split it by channel, you need to know where each new patient came from. Three simple ways:
- Ask at booking: “How did you hear about us?” with a fixed list of answers in your scheduling system, not free text.
- Separate phone numbers or forms per channel: tracking numbers for ads and listings, a different form or link for each source.
- Source fields from lead services: requests that arrive through a referral service are already labeled by source.
Word of mouth and returning former patients will always be fuzzy. Keep them as their own line rather than spreading them across paid channels.
The funnel behind the number
PAC is the result of several smaller rates. If it is too high, the cause is usually in one of these steps:
PAC = cost per lead / (contact rate × booking rate × show rate)
- Cost per lead: what one inquiry costs from that channel.
- Contact rate: the share of inquiries your team actually reached. Slow follow-up shows up here; see our guide on speed to lead for medical practices.
- Booking rate: the share of reached people who booked a consultation.
- Show rate: the share of booked people who came.
A channel with cheap leads can still have a high PAC if few of those leads are reached or show up. Improving contact and show rates often lowers PAC faster than cutting ad spend, because the leads are already paid for.
What is a “good” patient acquisition cost?
You will find average PAC figures online, often without a clear source, sample or definition. We do not publish one, because the answer depends on the treatment, your fees, your area and how you define a new patient. A more useful test is your own: compare PAC with the gross margin of a typical first treatment plan for that treatment, and with how long patients usually stay with your practice. A channel is worth growing when its PAC sits comfortably below what a new patient is worth to you over time, and when it stays there month after month.
Mistakes that distort PAC
- Counting leads instead of patients.
- Leaving out staff time or agency fees.
- Comparing months with different definitions.
- Judging a channel on one month. Search and referral channels can take several months to settle; look at a three-month rolling figure.
- Crediting every new patient to the last ad they clicked, when many first heard of you elsewhere.
A monthly routine
- Export new patients by source from your practice management system.
- Add up costs per channel from invoices, ad accounts and your staff time log.
- Calculate PAC per channel and the three-month rolling figure.
- Look at contact, booking and show rates for the channel with the highest PAC.
- Make one change, and check its effect next month.
How MediLeadGen requests fit in
MediLeadGen charges a fixed price per delivered request, one price per treatment group, the same for every practice. That makes the cost side simple to log: requests delivered times the price. Add your team’s follow-up time, divide by the requests that became attended consultations, and you have the PAC for that channel, comparable with your others.
See how it works for practices
Questions practices ask
How do you calculate patient acquisition cost?
Add up everything spent to gain new patients in a period (media, fees, tools, outside help and staff time) and divide by the new patients gained in the same period, using one fixed definition of a new patient.
Is patient acquisition cost the same as cost per lead?
No. Cost per lead divides cost by inquiries. PAC divides it by people who became patients, so it is always higher, and it also reflects how well your team follows up.
Should staff time be included?
Yes, at a loaded hourly cost. Without it, channels your team runs by hand look cheaper than they are.
What is the average patient acquisition cost in healthcare?
There is no reliable single figure: published averages use different definitions, treatments and samples. Compare your PAC with what a new patient is worth to your own practice instead.
General information for practice teams, not financial, legal or medical advice. Last reviewed October 2026.