Patient Acquisition Cost (PAC)
The total marketing and advertising spend required to convert one new patient for a medical practice.
Patient Acquisition Cost is the healthcare-specific version of customer acquisition cost: total spend across SEO, paid search, and other channels divided by the number of new patients gained in a period. Because a single high-value patient (e.g., an ongoing treatment plan) can be worth far more than a one-time transaction, practices generally tolerate a higher PAC than typical e-commerce businesses.
Example
A dental practice spending $6,000 a month on SEO and paid ads that brings in 20 new patients has a PAC of $300 per patient.
Nuance
PAC is only meaningful alongside patient lifetime value — a $300 PAC is excellent for a practice where the average patient is worth $3,000 over time, and poor for a practice with a single $150 visit.