Updated October 2026
Selling a physical therapy practice
Your group sells on its clinics, its therapists and the physicians who refer to you. Behind that sits years of intake scripts, authorization steps, scheduling rules and the central office's playbook for chasing denials, and AI companies now pay to license a copy of records like these. They want the way the group runs, not plans of care, and several of them name healthcare administration.1,2
Who fits
One clinic or a regional group?
Buyers count heads across the whole company, and most want 20 to 30 or more, while a few state no minimum. A single outpatient clinic usually falls short, while a regional group with a dozen locations and a central billing office often clears it, and that is also the kind of group private equity buys.3,4,5,6,7
Healthcare is a yes for some buyers and a no for others right now, so the quiz asks your industry and size and introduces you only to the ones that take a therapy group.1
| Fact | Value and source |
|---|---|
| Who Mode takes | Most businesses or nonprofits need 20+ full-time US office employees; accounting firms 10+ and law firms 6+; several years of records they own |
| Who Grepped takes | No headcount minimum stated; its form lists industries from accounting, construction and legal to logistics, manufacturing and software |
| Industries micro1 names | Technology; BPOs and recruiting firms; financial services; consulting; professional services; legal and compliance; healthcare administration; logistics and operations |
What buyers want
The central office's playbook, not the chart
Split the records in two. Plans of care, daily notes and progress reports are patient records. What the group wrote for itself is the other half: front-desk intake scripts, insurance verification and visit-authorization steps, cancellation and no-show policies, therapist onboarding and the denial playbook. That second half is what buyers ask for: SOPs, playbooks, templates, email, documents and billing records.8,9
Buyers say sensitive health records and data held on behalf of clients are left out, and personal details are scrubbed. Get the exclusions in writing before you send a sample, ask who on your side reviews it, and expect any offer to be scoped narrowly.10,11,12
Money and timing
What could it pay, and how much work is it?
No buyer publishes a therapy-specific price. Published ranges mostly run $100K to $2M, as the buyers' own claims. The owner's part is small, mostly an export of about 1-3 hours by the buyers' own count, and offers usually come within a few days to two weeks.13,14,15,16,17,18
If you are already talking to an acquirer, raise the data question early. Frankfurt Kurnit Klein & Selz writes that a prior data sale will come up in diligence, with documentation of the review and the exclusions expected. Outcomes data and other clinical records are a separate, specialist market with its own review.19,20
FAQ
Questions, answered with sources
Every business is different, so this one is best talked through with the buyer you're working with. Their team goes over it with you before anything is signed.
Before you sign
Questions to talk through with your buyer
Every business is different, so these are best talked through with the buyer you're working with. Their team goes over them with you before anything is signed.
Questions for this kind of business
- Which operations documents reference patients, and how will you remove those references?
- How do CCPA, GDPR, UK GDPR and state privacy laws apply, and is de-identified data still personal information?
- Do professional rules apply (AICPA, IRC 7216, HIPAA, ABA Model Rule 1.17, insurance agency contracts, adviser rules, state boards)?
Questions for any buyer
- Is the license exclusive, and for how long?
- Can you sublicense the data, and to whom?
- Which AI labs will receive it, and will you tell us?
- How long do you keep it, and how is it deleted?
- What is your liability cap, and who indemnifies whom?
- Will the contract ban re-identification of people in the data?
- Who removes personal data, by what method, and do we approve it first?