The true value of a primary care patient.

A primary care panel can look like a loss on the clinic P&L and a major gain for the system in the same breath. Enter your assumptions and see both sides.

See the Math

Your Current Panel

Enter your group's numbers. Every result updates live.

Inputs

Lives per PCP: —
$
$
$
15%50%
40%60%

Annual value per attributed life

$0 / life / year
Professional margin
$0
Value-based
$0
Incremental downstream
$0

Across your group

Practice view
$0
Annual clinic P&L
System view
$0
Upside beyond the clinic
Combined view
$0
Net annual value

Per average PCP (based on — lives per PCP)

Practice view
$0
System view
$0
Combined view
$0

Explore each lever

Three tools that run the numbers on the big primary-care decisions.

Cost of attrition

What does churn cost your panel, and what's retention worth?

Low
5% / year
$0
Annual margin lost
Medium
7.5% / year
$0
Annual margin lost
High
10% / year
$0
Annual margin lost
Value of a 1% reduction in attrition
$0
Permanently cutting your attrition rate by one percentage point increases annual recurring margin by this amount.

Value of growth

Annual combined value your panel generates over 10 years under different growth rates. Y0 starts at your current panel.

Shrinking
–2% / year
Year 10
—
10-yr cumulative: —
Flat
0% / year
Year 10
—
10-yr cumulative: —
Modest
+5% / year
Year 10
—
10-yr cumulative: —
Rapid
+10% / year
Year 10
—
10-yr cumulative: —

Try your own growth rate

Annual panel growth 5%
–10%0%+20%
Year 10 lives
—
Year 10 combined
—
10-yr cumulative
—

Hiring a new PCP

What does a new PCP hire return over 5 or 10 years, given your ramp-up?

New PCP inputs

$
%
Time horizon
Early-career loss multipliers apply. New PCPs lose more than established ones in early years. We apply 200% of your annual loss per provider in Year 1, 150% in Year 2, 125% in Year 3, and 100% from Year 4 onward.

Value-based, downstream revenue, contribution margin, and incrementality inherit from your current-panel inputs above.

IRR
—
Internal rate of return on cash flows
NPV @ 8%
$0
Net present value
Cumulative contribution
$0
Over 10 years

Annual net contribution

Year 0 investment / net loss Net contribution

Year-by-year

Year Panel end Practice loss Net annual Cumulative
How these numbers are calculated

Primary care's full economic value is rarely visible on the clinic P&L. The model below combines three components per attributed life:

  1. Professional margin — the clinic-level operating result (typically a small loss per patient).
  2. Value-based performance — shared savings, PMPM, and quality incentives attributable to the panel.
  3. Incremental downstream contribution — downstream system revenue (specialty, imaging, procedures, inpatient) multiplied by contribution margin and an incrementality factor to isolate what's truly additive to the system.
Value per life = Professional margin + Value-based $ + (Downstream revenue × CM% × Incrementality%)

Practice view shows only the professional margin rolled up across your current PCP count. System view shows the upside (value-based plus incremental downstream contribution) rolled up across attributed lives. Combined view is Practice + System — the net true value.

IRR treats the upfront investment as a Year-0 outflow. Each year's system value uses the average panel during that year — the midpoint of start-of-year and end-of-year — because patients accrue throughout the year, not on day 1. Net contribution equals (avg panel × system value per life) minus (annual loss per provider × early-career multiplier: 2.0× in Year 1, 1.5× in Year 2, 1.25× in Year 3, 1.0× from Year 4 on). IRR is the discount rate at which NPV equals zero, solved numerically.

Based on "Practice Losses, System Gains: The True Value of Primary Care." Assumptions are illustrative — run your own numbers against your cost accounting.

Want help running these numbers on your data?

Book a Demo Call