TL;DR
Define the consultation campaign before calculating its cost. Use actual media, agency, implementation and inquiry-handling inputs, then divide only by the practice-verified event the campaign was designed to obtain. Keep later treatment decisions unknown. A consultation cost model can compare purchasing scope without predicting treatment revenue or return.
Decide what is being acquired
An inquiry about a consultation, a coordinator conversation and an attended clinical consultation are different events. Pick the event relevant to the purchase and give it a plain name. If proposals use different endpoints, their quoted acquisition costs are not directly comparable.
Record the practice's actual offer: appointment type ___; location or format ___; request route ___; confirmation owner ___; chosen reporting event ___. Include the relevant campaign and reporting period. Leave unverified details blank rather than inventing a standard fertility pathway.
The aim is to understand the cost of the agreed administrative acquisition task. It is not to estimate whether a person will proceed with treatment, which treatment might be chosen or what that choice would be worth.
If the practice promotes a fertility-preservation information conversation alongside a new clinical consultation, preserve the actual invitation as a separate offer category. Do not combine those endpoints under an unexplained consultation total. Where financial-coordination contacts are offered, allocate their actual handling expense under the owner's documented rule. Do not assume every inquiry uses that contact or attach a later treatment fee to an undecided inquiry.
Complete the variable-based cost model
The following model is an original owner worksheet. Enter amounts from invoices, actual internal records and current written quotes. Do not copy another practice's fee or labor assumptions.
| Variable | Enter the actual included cost | Boundary to record |
|---|---|---|
| M | Campaign media expense | Campaign and billing scope |
| A | Agency work allocated to this campaign | Included deliverables and allocation method |
| I | Implementation expense assigned to the review | New work versus a retained asset |
| S | Software or routing expense assigned to the campaign | Included functions and shared-cost method |
| H | Practice inquiry-handling expense included by the owner | Actual recorded time and approved cost basis |
| V | Verified administrative events at the chosen endpoint | Definition, deduplication rule and observation cutoff |
Let C = M + A + I + S + H. The worksheet's cost per verified event is C / V when V is positive. When no qualifying event is verified, report the cost and event count separately; the unit cost is unavailable. This is arithmetic using your chosen scope, not an industry benchmark or return forecast.
Reconcile overlapping charges before adding them. If the agency invoice already includes media or software, separate the actual components or mark the bundled amount explicitly so the same expense is not added again. State the currency and use costs allocated to the same campaign and inquiry cohort as V. A calendar-period total that includes consultations from older inquiries answers a different question.
If reliable handling expense is unavailable, show the model excluding H and name that exclusion. Do not insert an estimated wage or assumed time to make the total appear complete. Keep missing inputs visible when comparing proposals.
Treat preparation and repeated work differently
A consultation-page repair may remain useful beyond the campaign under review. A recurring agency fee may cover several services. Choose and document an allocation method with the commercial owner so the same asset is not charged in full to every campaign or omitted from every campaign.
Ask providers to separate preparation, campaign delivery, ongoing maintenance and optional work. ASRM's social-media guidance notes that maintaining and evaluating a presence consumes resources and that staff or agency support can add cost. ASRM's operational discussion. It does not supply the inputs for your consultation campaign.
Use the scope budgeting worksheet to establish what the provider includes. This model then makes the consultation-specific endpoint and the practice's included handling cost explicit.
Match the denominator to the cost question
An owner may want to compare cost per inquiry with cost per attended consultation. Prepare separate labeled calculations using supported event counts. Do not present the lower unit cost as superior if it uses an earlier endpoint or a broader inclusion rule.
Document how repeat contacts, reschedules, duplicate forms and contacts from existing patients are handled. Keep the operational reference inside approved practice systems. An agency-facing summary should contain only the evidence the practice has approved for that recipient.
A report cut off before later consultations occur answers a limited timing question. Preserve that cutoff and update the same inquiry cohort when appropriate. Do not move a later consultation into a newly acquired cohort merely because it occurred under a new invoice.
Compare affordability without assumed treatment value
Complete an owner decision note: verified included cost ___; endpoint ___; missing expense ___; available consultation capacity ___; unresolved acquisition question ___; next authorized spend ___; next review ___. Use the actual budget and capacity the practice is prepared to commit.
Keep future treatment value outside this worksheet. Assigning it to open inquiries would add assumptions about personal and clinical decisions that the model does not establish. Even verified consultation collections would need their own accounting scope before supporting a claim about contribution or profit.
GetPatients has a commercial interest in healthcare visibility services. Apply the same cost boundaries to its proposals. No particular fee, consultation allowance or financial result is asserted here.
Frequently asked questions
Should we include the consultation's clinical delivery cost?
Decide whether the question is acquisition expense or a broader service-economics review. If the latter, have the practice's accounting owner define the additional actual costs separately. Do not switch scopes without labeling the change.
Can we compare a coordinator-call campaign with a consultation campaign?
Compare their scope and endpoint explicitly. A lower cost per coordinator call does not establish a lower cost per attended consultation.
What if the model has missing inputs?
Report the supported subtotal and exclusions. Resolve material gaps before using the result to justify a larger commitment; a blank is more useful than invented precision.