Physical Therapy Clinic Feasibility Study in Missouri

Missouri clinics: franchised, and below the national weight

Two figures describe Missouri's therapy clinic lending. The first is the location quotient of 0.49x: therapy clinics weigh about half as heavily in Missouri's SBA lending as in the national book, so this is a state where the class is thin. The second is the franchise share of 27.6%. SBA recorded 29 Missouri clinic loans totalling $8.2 million over FY2017 to FY2026, which ranks the state 33 of 54, and clinics stand 20 of 39 inside the state.

Sizes, programs and the franchise effect

Half of the loans fall between $60,000 and $346,000, around a median of $143,000 that sits at 0.95x the class median nationally, almost level with it. Programs lean heavily to 7(a), with 27 loans against 2 under SBA 504. A borrower should be ready to show whether it is buying into a system with a track record or opening an independent practice, because the two carry different evidence for demand.

Lenders and where the clinics are

Only The Huntington National Bank appears in the lender table, holding 6 of the 7(a) loans worth $1.2 million. The tally is of loans on the bank's books, past or present, not a description of its policies. Saint Louis County leads with 13 loans, Jackson County has 7 and Greene County 5, with Clay at 2 and Boone and Lawrence at 1 each. Approvals were absent in FY2021, then climbed to 7 in FY2026, the strongest year in the file.

Outcome rates not published

Loan Analytics withholds both rates, because too few clinic loans stand in the cancellation and charge-off cohorts. No number is given, and a withheld rate is never read as zero. Readers should also remember that a rate, where one is shown on another page, is only a floor.

Testing a Missouri clinic

Missouri's low weighting means a new clinic cannot lean on a crowd of local precedents, so the study has to build demand from the ground. That means mapping orthopaedic and primary care referral sources within the drive time, estimating visits from the population that actually seeks therapy, and recruiting and retaining licensed therapists. For a franchised unit the study should compare the royalty and marketing load against what the brand delivers in referrals. The payer mix and the reimbursement per visit should be run on a slow first year. The fit-out and equipment budget must be reconciled with the median near $143,000, and repayment should be shown from clinic income alone, with any purchased real estate supported by an appraisal on that same income.