The problem with "Rules of Thumb" in Valuation and Asking Price Determination of Healthcare Professional Practices

The business valuation of healthcare professional practices is a widely discussed and contentiously debated topic among business appraisers, healthcare business consultants, accountants, brokers, lenders, buyers, sellers, and various other involved parties. This is attributable to a combination of competing interests and general confusion when it comes to valuation and asking price determination. This phenomenon is not uncommon in a field where seemingly innumerable variables exist in wholly different practice settings which can render even the best approach to valuation ineffective. With the inherent difficulty in accurately assessing the value of a healthcare practice and determining an appropriate price point which reflects market reality, the use of a "rule of thumb" as a substitute for due diligence can be severely problematic. Using an easily applied method in the absence of comprehensive data and analysis comes from the desire to simplify and compartmentalize complex ideas into bite-sized pieces. Rules of thumb are commonly seen as generalized ratios of earnings, price, overhead, financials data, or other key practice statistics. While potentially accurate over a large swath of aggregate data, the low volume nature of comparable healthcare practice transactions makes these rules of questionable effectiveness. In the hands of unknowlegable parties, they can be highly inaccurate and especially problematic when misapplied across different health fields (Valuing an optometry practice with a ratio used for medical practices is a common such example). No ratios or rules can encompass the intricacies of multiple healthcare disciplines, specialties, market factors, geographic locations, valuation purposes, size/scope of potential buyer pools, economies of scale, or purchase price allocation. With the difficulty in accurately and rapidly determining practice value, it is understandable that buyers and sellers of practices can become frustrated and overwhelmed in the process. This can be resolved by hiring a professional who is aware of current trends and can assess a practice for the party's given purpose. This is the most crucial aspect to obtaining an accurate and relevant valuation that can be actually utilized to achieve a specific objective (business move, retirement, lifestyle change, divorce, etc....). Appraising a practice "in theory" without considering the moderating effets of true market dynamics is a waste of time.