When valuing a pain practice, make sure you understand the nature of its business, says Vanita Spaulding (Cogent Valuation) in a recent article in the Ambulatory M&A Advisor. She says the valuation depends on whether the business is more an urgent care center where people come in one time or it is more a pain practice that operates on a more consistent patient base. Spaulding says that healthcare businesses such as pain practices are valued differently because they generally have developed more intangible assets than the average urgent care clinic.

Pain points: “A pain practice is different,” she says. “People come on a regular basis, sometimes even weekly. And any time you have patients returning on a regular basis, they develop a relationship with that business. A well-established group of patients, in valuation terms, is a customer relationship intangible asset, and is one of the factors in determining the value of the pain practice,” Spaulding says.