The best business loan broker for medical practices (2026)

What lenders look at in a medical practice

Medical cash flow is predictable but slow. Lenders price that lag.

Payer mix

Medicare, Medicaid, commercial plans and self-pay share

Claims health

Days in A/R and denial rate

New providers

Credentialing lag before a new clinician can bill

Ownership

Who legally owns the practice entity and who guarantees

Lenders underwrite collections, and in medicine collections trail the visit. CMS's claims manual bars Medicare from paying even a clean electronic claim before the 14th day after it is received, and commercial plans set their own schedules. A practice with a growing schedule can look short of cash simply because remittances have not landed yet. Bring an A/R aging report and your denial rate; a billing operation that collects promptly reads very differently from one carrying a pile of claims over 90 days.

Payer mix sets the ceiling. MACPAC, the congressional Medicaid advisory commission, reports that Medicaid fee-for-service rates for common physician services average about 72% of what Medicare pays, and cites a CBO review putting commercial rates at about 129% of Medicare. Lenders also notice the calendar: patients pay the full bill until they meet their plan deductible, so self-pay balances tend to be heavier early in a plan year. And a new clinician has to be enrolled with Medicare, and credentialed with each commercial plan, before billing it. If you are hiring, show the lender the start date and the expected billing date.

Two medical-specific points trip up applications. Medicare and Medicaid rules bar paying a practice's claims to a third party under an assignment, and CMS says a financing company cannot buy a practice's Medicare receivables. Funders that work with those claims have the payments deposited to an account in the practice's own name, which only the practice can instruct. And the AMA notes that most states have some form of corporate-practice-of-medicine restriction, which is why many practices are owned through a physician-owned professional corporation that contracts with a management company. Lenders look closely at that ownership chain, any management agreement, and who signs the guarantee.

1. Your own bank or an SBA preferred lender

The better and cheaper route for purchases, real estate and long-term needs.

Best for

Buying a practice or partner share, buying the building, standing lines

Speed

Weeks to months; SBA loans typically 60–90 days

Credit

SBA lenders typically want 680+ FICO and 2+ years

If your practice has two or more years of tax returns that show a profit, your own bank is the first call for a standing line of credit, and an SBA 7(a) loan (up to $5 million, per the SBA) can cover changes of ownership, equipment, working capital and refinancing existing business debt. For any need that can wait a few weeks, this is better than a short-term product from us or anyone else.

Where banks struggle is speed and the in-between file: a practice that is growing faster than its last tax return, has just added a provider, or is still recovering from a bad billing year. That is where a broker earns its keep. We can also arrange the SBA loan itself.

2. Medical claims factoring

Better than a loan when the cash is sitting in claims, not missing from the business.

Best for

Practices with large, collectible insurance A/R

Advance

A share of expected reimbursement, paid as claims are submitted

Watch for

Fees that run for as long as a claim stays unpaid

Factoring advances cash against claims you have already submitted, and the funder is repaid when the payer pays. Because there is no fixed payment, it grows with your billing, which suits a practice that is adding volume. If your problem is timing, not profitability, factoring is often the better fit than a term loan.

Bay Street Lending arranges invoice factoring from $25K to $10M, with 80–95% advanced on general receivables. Specialist medical-receivables funders also work directly with practices. Either way, ask how fees accrue on slow claims and how Medicare and Medicaid claims are handled, since those payments cannot be redirected to the funder.

3. Bay Street Lending

This is us. Best for an established practice that needs capital quickly and wants one advisor.

Best for

Practices 6+ months old with $25K+ a month in deposits

Products

Working capital $25K–$2.5M, line of credit $25K–$1M, equipment $25K–$5M, factoring, SBA

Cost to you

No fee from us; the funder pays us if you fund

Track record

Our team has arranged $250M+; 5.0 on Google from 45 reviews

You apply once (a soft credit pull, about two minutes), one named advisor works your file, and it goes only to the funders among our 100+ partners that fit. We never sell your information to other lenders. You get every option priced side by side, with total cost, payment and term in writing, before you sign anything, and you can walk away.

For practices, the usual fits are working capital to cover payroll while claims catch up (as fast as 6 hours), a line of credit for a practice with a year of history and 650+ credit, equipment financing for diagnostic or surgical equipment, and claims factoring. We work with medical practices, but we do not yet have a large medical funding to cite, so judge us on the offers we put in front of you.

We are not the right call for a practice under six months old, a request under $25,000, or a purchase that a bank will fund at a much lower cost.

4. A lender that specializes in subordinated debt

Better for larger physician groups that need a junior layer on top of a bank facility.

Best for

Multi-site groups needing more than $2.5M behind an existing bank loan

Form

Junior debt that sits behind the senior lender

Needs

Financial statements, projections and the senior lender's consent

Some lenders specialize in subordinated debt: capital that sits behind a senior bank loan, with the two lenders agreeing in writing who gets paid first. A multi-site group that already has a bank facility and needs more than our $2.5M working-capital ceiling is a better fit there than with us. Ask your bank first whether it will simply increase the facility; it already holds the collateral and knows the practice.

Expect real diligence: reviewed financial statements, projections, the management agreement if the practice runs through one, and weeks rather than days. For cash stuck in claims rather than a capital project, a healthcare-receivables factoring company or the factoring we arrange is usually the simpler fit.

5. Fundera (NerdWallet)

Better for a new practice, a small request, or a business credit card.

Best for

Requests from $5,000; startups; credit cards

Cost to you

Free; paid by the lender once you fund

Reviews

Trustpilot 4.8 (1,214), BBB A+

Fundera, owned by NerdWallet, assigns a Funding Advisor and lists startup loans, business credit cards and personal loans alongside SBA and term loans. Its application starts at $5,000. A physician opening a first office, or needing under $25,000, is better served there.

Read the consent before you submit: Fundera's application lets it share your information with NerdWallet and its partners, and permits autodialed calls and texts from Fundera and partners. It says that consent is not a condition of using the service.

6. LendingTree

Better for owners who want to shop several offers themselves.

Best for

Self-serve comparison; startups

Minimums

None stated at the platform level, per Merchant Maverick

Reviews

Trustpilot 4.5 (17,377, company-wide)

LendingTree is a marketplace that calls itself a marketing lead generator paid by lenders. It lists SBA microloans up to $50,000 and, according to Merchant Maverick, has no platform minimums for time in business, credit or revenue. For a very new practice, it is a better first stop than we are. Expect calls from several lenders and from LendingTree's own concierge team.