TL;DR
Measure LASIK acquisition costs using a defined cohort of inquirers, verified evaluation events and recorded costs. Compare new proposals using their complete quoted commitments, separately from observed results. Leave procedure conversion and financial inputs as variables until practice evidence supports them. Keep consultation economics visible even when later procedure outcomes are unresolved. A worksheet can expose assumptions without predicting ROI.
Reject the shortcut from form cost to procedure profit
A vendor can turn a cost per inquiry into a procedure-profit projection using an assumed procedure conversion rate. The arithmetic may be tidy while the essential assumption remains unsupported. Ask for the actual event definitions, cohort and cost boundary before discussing a projected return.
A LASIK inquiry is not a clinical candidate. FDA describes an initial eye-doctor evaluation to determine candidacy. FDA's evaluation guidance. The acquisition model must therefore preserve the evaluation stage rather than treating every interested contact as potential procedure revenue.
GetPatients has a commercial interest in healthcare visibility services. Apply the same request for evidence to any model it proposes. No market price, capture rate, standard procedure margin or required spending level is supplied here.
Complete a variable-only cost and cohort worksheet
Choose a cohort of distinct people using their original included inquiry receipt period and a documented inclusion rule. Preserve that membership when someone contacts the practice again or attends later. Have authorized practice staff identify related events inside approved systems. Share only a summary the practice has approved for the actual recipient.
| Variable | Definition to approve | Input and evidence |
|---|---|---|
| M | Recorded acquisition cost allocated to this cohort under a stated method | Media, agency, creative, software and implementation cost evidence ___ |
| H | Recorded additional practice handling cost, excluding costs already in M or the delivery costs deducted within K | Coordinator work and other genuinely incremental cost evidence ___ |
| Q | Count of distinct people with an included inquiry, after the declared person-level duplicate rule | Receiving-system evidence and unresolved matching limits ___ |
| A | Count of people in Q with a verified attended evaluation by the observation cutoff | Scheduling evidence ___ |
| P | Count of people in Q with the separately defined procedure event by the same cutoff | Authorized practice evidence, or unavailable ___ |
| K | Finance-approved contribution from included procedure activity linked to P, before M and H | Collections, refunds, relevant delivery costs and accounting cutoff, or unavailable ___ |
Record the service mix, consultation offer, sites, observation cutoff and accounting treatment beside the variables. Use the same declared observation basis for linked attendance, procedure and financial events. Unresolved matching cannot be silently treated as a new person. Do not copy a vendor's 'case' total into P without confirming whether it counts people, eyes, appointments or procedures. Keep repeat testing and reschedules out of new-acquisition counts under the declared rule.
Calculate only what the inputs establish
Where Q is positive and the allocation is valid, M ÷ Q is recorded acquisition cost per included inquirer. Where A is positive, (M + H) ÷ A is the defined acquisition-and-handling cost per person with an attended evaluation. Repeated evaluations do not add people to A. These identities describe the specified costs and events; they do not establish incremental causation or profitability.
If no attended evaluation is verified, report the measure unavailable and show the actual cost and event totals. Do not replace the denominator with requested or confirmed consultations just to produce a result. A different denominator creates a different measure.
When either P or K is unavailable, stop at evaluation economics. If appropriately evidenced later, K − M − H expresses the defined contribution after those acquisition and handling costs. Finance must resolve what K includes so the same staff or delivery cost is not deducted again. This is a management expression, not an accounting standard or a forecast.
Compare cohorts with compatible observation opportunity
Recent inquiries have not necessarily had the same opportunity to reach later events as older inquiries. Choose an elapsed observation age from each person's original included inquiry when comparing cohort outcomes, and retain the earlier snapshots. Build each age-matched view from the events within that same elapsed interval; a shared calendar cutoff alone does not equalize time since receipt. If the newer cohort has not reached that age, show the comparison as pending.
Keep a separate calendar view for invoices, staffing and cash. An agency fee incurred now and a procedure associated with an older inquiry may belong to different acquisition cohorts. An allocation method can make the analysis explicit; it cannot reconstruct source evidence that never existed.
Record known changes in consultation pricing, promoted procedure mix, surgeon availability, sites and response coverage. Do not assume that a campaign improvement caused a favorable change while those conditions also changed. Use the measurement dictionary to preserve event boundaries.
Ask for priced alternatives to the same constraint
Give providers the same approved service and cohort definition. Ask what each quote includes: media management, page implementation, coordinator support, reporting or a separate software commitment. Use actual written costs and identify what the practice must supply. Keep proposed prices and unincurred commitments in this purchase comparison; do not combine them with recorded M and H and label the result an observed acquisition cost.
A higher fee may purchase more accountable handling work; a lower fee may require internal staffing. Neither is automatically better. Use the scope budget worksheet to expose exclusions, then judge whether the complete arrangement addresses the observed constraint.
Finish the decision record: supported cost measure ___; unresolved procedure evidence ___; missing practice input ___; chosen scope ___; actual authorized commitment ___; next evidence review ___. Refuse an unsupported conversion assumption without pretending the campaign's eventual outcome is already known.
Frequently asked questions
Can we use another clinic's conversion rate temporarily?
Keep it outside this practice-evidence worksheet. Ask which input is unknown and whether a bounded purchase can generate relevant evidence without depending on that borrowed rate.
Should evaluation fees be counted as procedure revenue?
Use the finance-approved definition and show the streams separately where relevant. A consultation receipt does not establish a later procedure or its contribution.
Is cost per attended evaluation enough to renew?
It supports a narrower decision. Review actual costs, usable capacity, accepted work and unresolved later events before renewing a broader profitability claim.