Medical and Healthcare Finance for Professionals, Practices and Day Hospitals

Your financial position is rarely standard. Your lending strategy should not be either.

Oakwood Finance arranges finance for doctors, medical specialists, surgeons, dentists, veterinarians, psychologists and allied health professionals, and for the medical practices, healthcare facilities and day hospitals they own and operate, across Australia.

From your first home through to practice acquisition, premises, equipment and fit-out, working capital and major healthcare projects, we understand how lending considerations change across a medical career, and how lenders assess a practice, a group or a facility. We compare suitable options across 70+ lending partners, and every option remains subject to lender assessment.

Many lenders offer medico policies to accredited medical professionals. Qualifying occupation lists differ: some extend to veterinarians, psychologists and allied health professionals, while others are limited to doctors, medical specialists, surgeons and dentists.

Depending on your profession, lender policy and circumstances, these can include, for example:

• Reduced or waived Lenders Mortgage Insurance, where a lender offers it
• Higher loan-to-value ratios than the lender’s standard policy
• Specialist servicing treatment and flexibility around income paid through a service entity or a newly established practice
• Professional package benefits and access to medical or private banking teams

Occupation lists are often narrower than lender marketing suggests, so the useful question is which lender’s list you are on. We compare suitable options across our panel and present those aligned with your profession, financial position and objectives, whether you are buying your first home or next home, adding an investment property or refinancing. All options are subject to lender assessment.

Your borrowing requirements can change significantly across a medical career. Early on, as an intern, registrar or newly registered dentist, veterinarian or psychologist, the priority is often a first home while managing study debt and establishing income.

Later, the focus commonly shifts towards:

• Investment property
• Practice ownership and partnership buy-ins
• Commercial premises
• Equipment, fit-out and vehicles
• Working capital and cash-flow facilities
• SMSF structures and healthcare property
• Practice expansion and business acquisition

Rather than treating each transaction independently, we consider how today’s lending decisions may affect tomorrow’s opportunities, so that the structure you put in place now is less likely to limit what comes next.

Lenders generally assess a practice as a business, so the quality of the file matters. A purchase is commonly assessed on the practice as well as on you: patient retention, how much of the billing belongs to the departing principal, the lease on the rooms and the goodwill component. Working capital and overdrafts are commonly assessed on cash flow.

We assist medical, dental, veterinary and allied health practices with:

• Practice acquisitions, buy-ins and franchise entry
• Practice establishment and new locations
• Working capital and overdraft facilities
• Commercial premises, including rooms held in an SMSF
• Debt consolidation and commercial refinancing
• Group structures across companies, trusts and property

The same things usually slow these files down: out-of-date financials, an undisclosed ATO position and service entity income without the accountant’s explanation. All three are solvable in advance, so we prepare the file before it reaches a lender. See also our commercial finance page.

Day hospitals, specialist centres and healthcare developments often require several forms of funding to work together. A single project may involve:

• Commercial property, whether purchased, built or refurbished
• Construction or development finance drawn in stages against progress
• Healthcare operations and working capital through the build period
• Specialised medical and theatre equipment
• Existing debt, multiple entities and trusts, and future expansion

Oakwood Finance has experience structuring finance for significant healthcare facilities involving complex group structures and substantial aggregate lending exposure, including facilities extending into tens of millions of dollars across commercial property, hospital operations, specialised equipment and working capital.

For projects of this scale, we work alongside your accountants, legal advisers, consultants, valuers and banking teams to help coordinate the finance process, drawing on our development and construction experience where a facility is being built rather than bought.

Scenario 01 · Day hospital

Four different funding needs, presented as one plan

Funding $18.1 million · Structure Five facilities, 20/15/5/2 years · Timeframe Staged across the build

The situation. A day hospital expanding its footprint — building works, a full clinical fit-out, theatre and consulting equipment, and working capital to trade through the construction period.

The complication. Those four needs have four different funding profiles. Construction draws down in stages against progress. Equipment is asset-backed. Fit-out largely is not. Working capital is assessed on cash flow. Bundled into one application it reads as an oversized ask; split into four unrelated ones, no lender ever sees the plan that makes it make sense.

What we did. Structured it as a coordinated package with each component matched to its own repayment profile, and presented the whole plan — including the practice’s forecasts — rather than four fragments. We worked alongside the client’s accountant, the builder and the fit-out designers so the drawdown schedule tracked the construction program and equipment landed as rooms became ready, instead of sitting funded and idle.

The outcome. A package of just over $18 million: $10.08m fit-out, $3.95m premises, $2.69m equipment, a $395,000 GST facility and $1m working capital. The premises settled first, with the construction and equipment facilities established roughly a year later as the build began.

Scenario 02 · Dental franchise

Buying into a franchise, with the exit mapped before the entry

Funding Approx. $4 million · Structure Goodwill, equipment, working capital · Timeframe Six to eight months

The situation. A practitioner buying into an established dental franchise group — goodwill, equipment, fit-out and working capital in a single transaction.

The complication. Franchise agreements carry terms that directly affect finance and are easy to skim past. How goodwill is valued on exit, whether the franchisor holds first right of refusal, what happens to the fit-out if the agreement ends, how the practice can be sold and to whom. Those clauses shape the security position, and lenders price for them.

What we did. Brought the client’s lawyer and accountant in before the finance was structured rather than after — the lawyer reviewed the franchise terms, the accountant modelled both the entry and the eventual exit. We then built the finance around what that review showed, so the term and structure matched a realistic holding period instead of just getting the purchase across the line.

The outcome. A package of approximately $4 million structured across goodwill, equipment and working capital rather than as a single facility, with a secured component over 30 years and an unsecured component over seven. Six to eight months from first approach to completion — with an exit position the client understood before signing rather than discovering later.

Scenarios are drawn from transactions Oakwood Finance has assisted with. No client is named and identifying details have been removed or altered; figures describe those specific transactions. This is general information only — it is not credit assistance, a quote, or a recommendation, and no outcome is implied for any other client. Every structure depends on individual circumstances, lender credit policy and approval. Timeframes describe what happened on these specific files and are not a commitment. Oakwood Finance arranges finance; taxation, legal and financial advice is provided by appropriately licensed professionals, with whom we work.

Whether you are buying a home as a medical professional, acquiring or establishing a practice, funding equipment and fit-out, expanding a healthcare business or planning a day hospital or new facility, the right lending structure starts with understanding the complete picture.

Speak with Oakwood Finance for a confidential discussion about your medical or healthcare finance requirements. You can also meet the team or use our calculators first.

Our medical finance team works with practitioners across Australia, including in Adelaide, Brisbane, on the Gold Coast and in Perth.