A guide for UK clinic owners and practice managers
The numbers your clinic can't see
Your clinic software, your accounts and your ads each report their own numbers, and each one is right. The money you're losing sits between them. This guide shows which numbers you already have, the twelve you're missing, and what they can be worth.
▼ Slipping away£49,880a month, between a full diary and the bank
▲ Winnable+£11,900a month from two fixes, about £143k a year
Example clinic: 1,520 bookable slots a month, £90 average fee. Illustrative figures, not a client's results.
1What your systems already tell you
2The twelve numbers no single system can show
3What they're worth
4The 1st-of-the-month test
5How we get them for you
Ordinal Insight · ordinalinsight.com1
1 · What your systems already tell you
Every system tells you part of the story
A typical independent clinic runs on six to eight systems. Each has good reports for its own data, and none can see the others.
Cl
Clinic software
Cliniko, Semble, Pabau, Dentally, TM3, WriteUpp
No-show and cancellation rates
New patients and where they say they came from
Visits and revenue per clinician
Which ad brought the patient, or whether the visit was paid
X
Accounting
Xero, QuickBooks, Sage, FreeAgent
Revenue against target
Unpaid invoices over 30 days
Revenue by payer
Which visits were never invoiced
S
Card payments
Stripe, Square, SumUp, Dojo
Card takings
Refunds
Card fees
Whether deposits actually cut no-shows
H
Insurer billing
Healthcode; Bupa, AXA Health, Aviva, Vitality, WPA
Days to pay, by insurer
Shortfalls and their reasons
Paid vs billed
Whether a shortfall was ever billed to the patient
G
Google Ads
Search and Performance Max
Clicks and cost per click
Conversions, as Google counts them
Spend by campaign
How many of those became patients who turned up
M
Meta Ads
Facebook and Instagram
Leads
Cost per lead
Spend by campaign
Which leads ever booked an appointment
GA
Website analytics
Google Analytics 4
Visits by channel
Enquiries and booking clicks
Conversion rate
Which channel brings bookings, not just visits
C
Call tracking
CallRail, Mediahawk, ResponseTap
Calls by source
Missed calls by hour
Answer rate
What the missed calls cost you
Each report is right. None of them can tell you where the month went.
Ordinal Insight · The numbers your clinic can't see2
2 · The twelve numbers no single system can show
They only exist when your systems are joined
Each of these needs two or more systems that don't talk to each other. That's why nobody in the clinic has them, and why they're where the money is.
Which marketing brings patients who turn up?
01
Real cost per new patient
Ad spend divided by new patients who actually attended, not by leads or clicks.
Google AdsMetaClinic software⇄ joined
Example clinic: Meta looked cheap per lead, but cost about £140 per patient who turned up.
02
Google says vs what happened
The conversions Google claims next to the new patients who actually arrived.
Google AdsClinic software⇄ joined
Example clinic: Google claimed 1.6× more patients than arrived.
03
Meta leads that became patients
How many form-fill leads ever booked, and attended.
MetaClinic software⇄ joined
04
Website enquiries that booked, by channel
Which channels bring bookings, not just visits.
Website analyticsClinic software⇄ joined
How many patients do we fail to answer?
05
Answered new callers who book
How well the front desk turns first-time calls into appointments.
Call trackingClinic software⇄ joined
06
£ value of missed first-time calls
Missed new callers × the share who book × the value of a first visit.
Call trackingClinic softwareAccounting⇄ joined
For example: 40 missed new callers × 30% × £90 = £1,080 a month, before any follow-up visits.
Ordinal Insight · The numbers your clinic can't see3
2 · The twelve numbers (continued)
Did every visit get paid?
07
Attended but never invoiced
Work done and never billed: visits in the diary with no matching invoice.
Clinic softwareAccounting⇄ joined
08
Days from visit to invoice to cash
How slowly work turns into money, step by step.
Clinic softwareAccounting⇄ joined
09
Deposits vs no-shows
Whether taking a deposit really cuts no-shows, and by how much.
Card paymentsClinic software⇄ joined
10
Card fees as a share of revenue
What taking payments really costs, by site.
Card paymentsAccounting⇄ joined
What are insurers holding back?
11
Insurer days to pay
Which insurers pay late, and how much is waiting.
Insurer billingAccounting⇄ joined
Example clinic: insurers taking 34 days against a 30-day target, and drifting.
12
Shortfalls never billed to the patient
The part an insurer didn't pay, which the patient owes and nobody invoiced.
Insurer billingAccounting⇄ joined
And the one that ties it togetherYour clinic score out of 100, with every gap in pounds
Every number is scored against your own target, with one owner and one definition, so the leadership meeting starts from one page instead of four reports.
Ordinal Insight · The numbers your clinic can't see4
3 · What they're worth
One month at an example clinic
The diary sets what the clinic could earn. Some slots are never booked, some patients don't turn up, and some invoices aren't paid. Joined up, every step has a price.
Diary capacity1,520 slots × £90
£136.8k
Never booked334 empty slots
−£30.1k
Didn't turn up133 no-shows
−£12k
Unpaid after 30 daysinsurers and patients
−£7,850
Bankedwithin 30 days
£86.9k
Slipping away
Between a full diary and the bank, every month. Not all of it is recoverable; the next three are.
£49,880
+£8.5k a monthFill the diary to 85%
From 78% today. The gap usually starts with enquiries that never book.
+£3.4k a monthCut no-shows to 8%
From 11.2%. Reminders and deposits are the usual fixes.
+£2.9k cashUnpaid under £5,000
Money already earned, often insurer claims waiting on paperwork.
About £11,900 a month, or £143k a year, from two fixes, plus £2,850 of cash already earned. The example is made up; your numbers will differ, and our free check shows yours before you spend anything.
Ordinal Insight · The numbers your clinic can't see5
4 · The 1st-of-the-month test
Could you answer these on the 1st, without a spreadsheet?
Tick the ones you could answer in five minutes, with numbers everyone in the clinic agrees on.
How many patients did last month's Google Ads actually bring in?Ads + diary
What did each new patient really cost, by channel?Ads + diary
How many first-time callers did we miss, and what were they worth?Calls + diary
What did no-shows cost us last month, in pounds?Diary + accounts
How many attended visits were never invoiced?Diary + accounts
Which insurer is paying slowest, and how much is waiting?Insurers + accounts
How much in shortfalls was never billed to the patient?Insurers + accounts
Do our clinic software and our accounts agree on last month's revenue?Diary + accounts
Fewer than six ticks?
The money is there, you just can't see it yet. Every one of these needs two systems joined, and that's the only thing we do.
Ordinal Insight · The numbers your clinic can't see6
5 · How we get them for you
We do the work. AI does the reading. You own the result.
No new software for your team to learn and no reports to build.
1
Connect, read-only
We link to the systems you already pay for. You create every key, and you can switch any of them off at any time.
2
Join and check
Each enquiry is matched to its booking, each booking to its invoice, each invoice to the cash. Every number is checked against your systems and scored against your target.
3
Your brief on the 1st
One page: what you lost, what you could win back, and one decision for each owner. Written by AI, with every number matched automatically to your data.
We do the work
Connections, checks, the dashboard and keeping it right every month.
AI does the reading
It reads totals only, never patient names, and is never trained on your data.
You own the result
Once the project is paid, the dashboard and its documentation are yours to keep.
Built for patient data
We never need patient namesRead-only access you controlData agreement signed firstBuilt for UK GDPRYour own private dashboard