Exam tables, diagnostic equipment and EHR hardware fit equipment financing. Payroll during claim delays fits working capital or a line of credit. Buying an existing practice can be a term loan; the building is outside this site.
At a glance
- Offices of physicians with paid employees, Alamance County, NC (CBP 2023)
43
- Of those, with fewer than 5 employees
16
- Offices of physicians with paid employees, ZIP 27217 (ZBP 2023)
5
- Offices of physicians with no paid employees, Alamance County, NC (NES 2024)
76
Physician Practice Loans When a Burlington, NC Medical Practice Needs EHR Hardware
Behind an EHR sit workstations at the front desk, laptops or tablets for the exam rooms, a server or network gear, label printers and card scanners. That hardware is equipment and fits equipment financing. The EHR software itself is often billed as a subscription, paid monthly like rent, so it belongs in the practice's operating budget rather than in the financed amount.
Illustration only, invented figures: $19,800 of EHR hardware over 36 months at an annual rate of 10.5% works out to $643.55 per month and $23,167.80 across the term.
A switch from one EHR to another brings more than hardware: staff training hours and a stretch of lighter schedules while everyone learns the new screens. Those are operating costs. They can sit on working capital, kept apart from the hardware agreement so each is paid over a length of time that suits it.
Medical Business Loans When a Burlington, NC Medical Practice Needs Diagnostic Equipment
An ECG machine, a portable ultrasound, a spirometer or a set of power exam tables each has a quote, a serial number and a working life of several years. That is the profile equipment financing is built for, and the equipment can secure its own agreement.
| Measure | Value |
|---|---|
| Establishments with paid employees, Alamance County, NC | 43 |
| Of those, fewer than 5 employees | 16 |
| Annual payroll, all county establishments combined | $62 million |
| Establishments with paid employees, ZIP 27217 | 5 |
The payroll line is one total for all 43 county offices, not a typical practice. Nonemployer Statistics counted 76 offices of physicians in the county with no paid employees in 2024.
Urgent Care Funding When a Burlington, NC Medical Practice Needs Lab Analyzers
An urgent care or a primary care office running its own tests may add a chemistry or hematology analyzer so results come back during the visit. The analyzer is equipment and fits equipment financing. Reagents, controls and test kits are used up and reordered, so they belong on a line of credit or in the operating budget.
Before the call, have the analyzer quote, the service contract terms and an idea of how many tests a week the practice expects to run in-house. A partner can weigh those against the practice's deposits.
The service contract deserves its own line in the budget. It is a monthly or yearly cost that keeps running after the analyzer is paid off, so it belongs with operating costs, not in the amount financed.
Medical Practice Funding and Billing Gaps: Notes for Burlington, NC Physician Practices
A visit is paid when the claim is processed, and staff are paid every two weeks regardless. A batch of denied or resubmitted claims stretches that gap. Working capital or a line of credit carries payroll until the payments land.
Illustration only, invented figures: a practice with a biweekly payroll of $21,500 waiting 45 days on a batch of claims meets 3 or 4 payrolls in that time, depending on where the first payday falls: $64,500 to $86,000 in wages before the claims are paid.
For a request like this, a partner may look at the practice's claims aging report, which sorts unpaid claims by how long they have been open, along with recent bank statements. A practice that knows which payers settle slowly can size the request to the gap it actually sees rather than to a guess.
Medical Practice Equipment Financing Options: Loan, Lease or a Line of Credit
- Equipment loan: the practice owns the equipment from the start and pays a fixed amount each month until the balance is gone.
- Lease: the leasing company owns the equipment during the term; the contract says whether the practice can buy it at the end and at what price.
- Line of credit: a limit the practice draws on and pays down, suited to supplies and short gaps, not to equipment kept for years.
Which shape fits depends on how long the practice expects to keep the equipment and how much its value drops as newer models arrive. The practice should weigh full repayment as well as the installment amount.
By Sageway Lending · Updated