Merchant Funding Payback Estimator for Chiropractic Offices
Chiropractic offices take copays, cash-pay visits, care plans, and HSA/FSA cards at the front desk, while insurance reimbursements arrive separately. This estimator uses only your card sales to show what a holdback could mean for your office's daily deposits before you talk to any funder.
Your estimate
Estimates are based on published industry averages and are not a quote. Actual rates depend on card mix, ticket size, industry, and underwriting.
A payments specialist can walk through your funding options and what an actual application would look at. This estimate is not an offer of credit or an approval decision.
What counts as card sales for a chiropractic office
Merchant funding repaid through a holdback is based on money that runs through your card processor. For most chiropractic offices that means copays and coinsurance, cash-pay adjustments, prepaid care plans, wellness memberships charged to a card on file, and HSA/FSA card payments. Insurance reimbursements that arrive by check or ACH from payers usually do not pass through your card processing, so leave them out of 'Average monthly card sales'.
If your office collects $60,000 a month in total but only $25,000 of it runs through cards, enter $25,000. Your total collections may look strong, but the holdback can only be taken from card sales. Overstating volume makes the payback look faster than it will be.
Most chiropractic card payments are card-present at the front desk: tap, chip, or a phone wallet at checkout. The card-not-present share tends to come from recurring membership billing, card-on-file charges for care plan installments, and payments taken over the phone or through a virtual terminal. Pull a few recent processor statements and average the net deposits, not the gross sales before refunds.
Worked example: a hypothetical chiropractic office
These numbers are hypothetical and chosen only to show how the math works. A single-location chiropractic office is open 5 days a week, has been in business 30 months, and runs $30,000 a month in card sales. The owner wants $35,000 for a spinal decompression table and offers in the range of a 10% holdback and a 1.25 factor rate.
Five open days a week works out to about 21.67 open days a month, so daily card sales are about $1,385. With 24 or more months in business, the estimated range is $30,000 to $45,000, so the $35,000 request sits inside it. At a 10% holdback, out of every $100 in card sales, $10 goes to repayment: about $138 per open day, or about $3,000 a month at current sales. Total payback is $43,750, so the cost of capital is $8,750. Payback takes about 316 open days, roughly 14.6 months.
The full report adds a term loan comparison. At an assumed 12% APR over 15 months, the same $35,000 would cost about $2,524 a month and roughly $2,865 in total interest, about $5,885 less than the funding option in this example. Funding may still make sense if approval speed or flexible payments matter more to the office, but the dollar gap should be a deliberate choice.
Estimates are based on published industry averages and are not a quote. Actual rates depend on card mix, ticket size, industry, and underwriting.
How seasonality and schedules affect a chiropractic office's payback
A percentage holdback rises and falls with your card sales. Many chiropractic offices see patient out-of-pocket payments shift across the year as deductibles reset, and patient volume often dips around holidays and summer vacations. When card sales drop, the holdback shrinks with them, so payback stretches out. The total dollar cost does not change.
Office closures matter too. A week off for a continuing education seminar or the doctor's vacation means no card sales and no holdback. If the funder uses a fixed daily ACH debit instead of a percentage, those payments may keep coming while the office is closed. Ask which structure you are being offered.
The gated slow-sales scenario models card sales 20% below your average so you can see how far payback could stretch. For days open, enter the days your front desk actually takes card payments. Fewer open days make each day's holdback larger, but the monthly payment and total payback stay about the same.
What a good result looks like for a chiropractic office
A healthy result is a monthly payment your office can cover in a slow month without delaying payroll, rent, or associate pay. It is also a good sign when the money funds something that brings in revenue, such as decompression or laser therapy equipment, an X-ray upgrade, or an associate who can see more patients, and when that revenue should arrive well before payback ends.
Check how refunds are handled. Offices that sell prepaid care plans sometimes refund unused visits. Refunds reduce net card sales, and you should ask the funder how they affect the holdback and reconciliation.
Look past the factor rate. Ask about origination or underwriting fees taken out of the funded amount, whether you must move processing, and whether there is an early payoff discount. While you are reviewing statements, check for line items such as PCI non-compliance fees, statement fees, and monthly minimums. Trimming those can free up cash before you borrow anything. To review your numbers with someone, talk to a payments specialist at TouchSuite.
Frequently asked questions
Most of our revenue comes from insurance payers, not cards. Can we still use merchant funding?
Holdback-based funding is sized and repaid from card sales, so a chiropractic office that depends heavily on insurance may qualify for a smaller amount than its total collections suggest. Enter only your card volume in the estimator. If card sales are a small slice of revenue, also compare other options, such as a term loan or equipment financing.
We sell prepaid care plans and sometimes refund unused visits. How does that affect the holdback?
Refunds lower your net card sales, which can lower or offset the holdback on those days, depending on how the funder reconciles. Before signing, ask how refunds are handled and whether a run of care plan refunds would trigger a reconciliation or a change to your payments. For a realistic estimate, use average monthly card sales after refunds.
Our office is open four full days plus Saturday mornings. What should we enter for days open?
Enter the number of days your front desk actually processes card payments. In this case that is 5 if Saturday mornings bring in meaningful card sales. Changing days open changes the size of each day's holdback, but the monthly payment and total payback stay about the same, because both are driven by your monthly card volume.
Does recurring wellness membership billing help our numbers?
Recurring card-on-file billing tends to make monthly card sales steadier, and steadier sales make a percentage holdback more predictable for you. Include those membership charges in your monthly card sales. Note that failed or declined recurring charges never settle, so they do not count toward the volume the holdback is taken from.
Is funding a decompression table or laser through merchant funding a good idea?
It can be, if the equipment is expected to generate enough new card revenue to cover the monthly payment comfortably and to pay for itself before payback ends. Run the estimator, then compare the cost of capital to equipment financing or a term loan in the gated comparison. In our hypothetical example, a $35,000 advance at a 1.25 factor costs $8,750, versus roughly $2,865 in interest on a 12% term loan over 15 months. Estimates are based on published industry averages and are not a quote. Actual rates depend on card mix, ticket size, industry, and underwriting.