15. Get Out of Your Patients' Wallets: How to Price with Confidence

Let’s be honest… pricing in healthcare is a mess. Between insurance negotiations, opaque billing systems, and decades of corporate conditioning, it’s no wonder so many physicians feel lost when it comes to setting their own prices.

If you’re transitioning out of corporate medicine to start your own clinic, chances are you’ve wrestled with this question: How much should I charge? 

Maybe you’re afraid of overcharging patients. Maybe you’re angry after years of being underpaid and undervalued. Or maybe you just have no idea what “fair” even looks like outside the insurance machine.

Pricing isn’t just about numbers, it’s about mindset. Most physicians don’t realize how much their old environment has shaped the way they think about money, worth, and value. 

In this post, I'll unpack why pricing feels so emotionally charged, how to stop focusing on your patients’ wallets, and what it really means to price your services with confidence and clarity.

Why Healthcare Pricing Is So Broken

Let's start with the elephant in the room: the current healthcare pricing system makes absolutely no sense.

As a patient, you have no idea what something will actually cost, even with all the "transparency" tools supposedly available. And as a physician? You're stuck in the middle of a game where insurance companies inflate prices just so they can negotiate them back down through contracting.

It's completely backwards. If physicians just charged what they wanted and insurers paid it, we'd have actual transparency. Instead, we've created a system that rewards opacity for everyone except patients and physicians.

Physicians end up squeezed from both sides: pressure to keep costs low to maximize profit margins on insurance reimbursements, while also hearing constant complaints from patients about how expensive healthcare is in America.

Everyone agrees healthcare costs are too high. But this system has been 50 years in the making, and there's no simple fix. Physicians working inside corporate medicine have no real power to change it, they're just caught in the middle. And that's why so many are choosing to leave and build direct care practices instead.

The Two Pricing Traps Physicians Fall Into

When my clients come to me ready to start their own practice, they're often carrying a lot of baggage from corporate medicine, especially around money. I typically see one of two patterns emerge, and we spend time unpacking these beliefs so they can move forward with a healthy small business owner mindset.

Trap #1: The Fear of Overcharging

The first pattern is this deep nervousness about "overcharging" patients. My clients will say things like, "I don't want it to cost too much" or "I don't want to be seen as greedy."

I get it. They've spent years hearing patients complain about costs, and they genuinely care about their patients' situations. But here's what I notice: when you're constantly worried about keeping prices low to protect your patients' wallets, you're actually focusing more on their financial situation than on them as people (or on the quality of care you want to provide).

Ironically, this can lead you to underdeliver on your promise. You might talk yourself out of offering better services or tools because you're worried about the cost, even though it would lead to better outcomes.

And let's be real about how people actually spend money. I have friends who happily pay $8 a day for coffee but complain about a $30 copay to see their doctor. People's spending decisions aren't always rational—they're emotional and habitual.

You don't know how your patients spend their money, or what their priorities are. So get your head out of their wallets and focus on what you do know: how to best serve them medically.

Understanding Cost, Price, and Value

Part of the confusion around pricing comes from mixing up three distinct concepts: cost, price, and value.

In corporate medicine, these terms get used loosely (often to benefit insurance companies). But in small business, they have very specific meanings:

• Cost is what you pay to vendors for goods or services
• Price is what you charge customers for your goods or services
• Value is the perceived benefit a customer gets from your product or service

The first two are measured in dollars and cents. But value? That's measured from the customer's perspective and includes both tangible and intangible benefits.

Here's what many physicians miss: value includes way more than just the transaction itself.

Think about it this way. If someone buys a tube of specialized skin cream from a website, that's one thing. But if they buy it from you, and you give them detailed instructions on how to use it, answer their questions, and your staff follows up a week later to make sure it's working? That's exponentially more valuable, even though it's the same physical product.

This is why it's so important to understand which perspective you're bringing to pricing conversations. Insurance companies love to blur these definitions to their advantage, calling physician office fees "costs" when they're actually the price negotiated through contracts.

Trap #2: Overinflating Prices Out of Resentment

The second pattern I see, especially with physicians who feel really burned by their last employer, is the impulse to set prices reactively high.

Sometimes this comes from resentment, for example: "I was only getting paid $200 an hour at my old job, but I know I was worth $500, so that's what I should charge now."

I believe my clients when they tell me they were undervalued. But when you make pricing decisions based on past resentment and what you think you should have been paid, you might feel vindicated for the first month. But as that toxicity starts to fade and you settle into your new business, that price won't feel right anymore. And it's really awkward to lower prices later.

Similarly, some physicians want to set prices based on what they perceive as "market rate", looking at what other similar clinics charge and either matching or exceeding it.

But when you over-index on your competitors' prices, your focus is on everyone else's business instead of your own. You're essentially treating your services like a commodity in a basic supply-and-demand equation. That scarcity mindset keeps your head out of your own business, where you should be focused on increasing value for your patients.

And finally, if you base your entire pricing structure on what you think your time is worth—a pure time-for-money exchange—you're recreating the exact employee model you just left. You're turning yourself into an employee of your own business.

Didn't you leave corporate medicine to become a business owner, not just another employee?

How to Actually Set Your Prices

The reality is that you'll pull from all these perspectives to find the right price. But only after you get out of the employee mindset, out of your patients' wallets, and out of your competitors' businesses.

Your pricing should be based first on your clinic's mission and values, and then on the value you're bringing to your patients.

Here's one final strategic tip: It's much easier to raise your prices over time than to lower them.

Nobody wants to find out they would've gotten a cheaper rate if they'd just waited six months. And it feels incredibly awkward to go back and say, "Actually, I'm lowering my prices."

Starting slightly lower than you think you want to be can actually work in your favor, especially if it makes your offer feel like a no-brainer. When you genuinely believe people would be missing out if they didn't work with you at this price, you'll approach sales conversations completely differently.

You won't waste energy wondering if you're charging too much. You'll know you're offering something valuable, and that certainty comes through in every patient interaction. When you believe in your offer, others feel it too.

Building Your Pricing Strategy

Pricing doesn't have to be this emotionally charged, confusing mess. Once you understand the difference between cost, price, and value, and once you separate your worth from your past employer's dysfunction, you can set prices that feel good, serve your patients well, and build a business you actually want to run.

Remember: you can always adjust as you go. Your early-stage clinic might not provide as much value as your two-year-old clinic, and that's okay. As you add more value, your prices can reflect that.

The goal isn't perfection. It's building a sustainable business that honors both your expertise and your patients' needs without letting corporate medicine baggage cloud your judgment.

This wraps up my series on the most common mindset traps I see when physicians leave corporate medicine to start their own practices. If you're ready to work through your own pricing confusion or other entrepreneurial challenges, book a complimentary discovery call—I'd love to hear about your vision for independent practice.