Strategic market positioning: How benchmarking fuels smarter business decisions

As healthcare practices scale, one of the most overlooked strategic tools is competitive benchmarking. When done right, it helps clarify pricing, staffing, and investment decisions. But when done with poor or misaligned data, it can lead to missed opportunities.

Too often, healthcare entrepreneurs focus only on internal data without understanding industry benchmarks. Conversely, a data-driven approach to market positioning minimizes reliance on assumptions, enabling businesses to identify opportunities, mitigate risks, and strengthen their position in the industry.

Building on our earlier guide to management reporting systems, this article addresses the importance of keeping accurate data to build an effective benchmarking strategy that supports market positioning, competitive insight, and data-driven decision-making.

Why Benchmarking Matters in Today’s Market

In an industry known for slim margins and growing complexity, healthcare businesses that benchmark regularly make faster, more informed decisions. Comparative data provides a clear view of how your organization is doing and reveals where strategic adjustments can yield the highest returns.

Still, many practices operate in silos, measuring performance without the external context needed to identify improvement areas. This can lead to:

• Overpaying for marketing that doesn’t convert
• Underutilizing providers relative to peers
• Missing out on service line expansion opportunities
• Mispricing procedures compared to market rates

Benchmarking gives leaders clarity on how they’re performing compared to the broader industry and what moves to make next.

Understanding Industry Dynamics and Market Competition

Competition in healthcare is nuanced. Today’s patients have choices: retail clinics, telehealth platforms, urgent care chains, and concierge providers.

To successfully benchmark, leaders should monitor:

• Traditional metrics like provider productivity, gross margin, and patient volumes
• Emerging dynamics like retail distribution, digital adoption, and payer mix changes
• Reputation signals such as online reviews, local rankings, and patient surveys

A 5-Step Benchmarking Strategy

Effective benchmarking starts with clean internal reporting and grows into a forward-looking performance tool. Here’s how we guide clients through the process:

Step 1: Define What Matters Most

Select metrics that align with your strategy. Common examples include:

• EBITDA margin vs. industry average
• Revenue per provider
• Overhead ratio
• Patient visit trends over time
• Gross margin by service line

Step 2: Use Reporting Tools That Integrate Benchmarks

Accounting platforms like QuickBooks can integrate with performance dashboards, which lets you overlay benchmarks visually. We help clients combine internal profit and loss (P&L) data with industry targets to spot improvement areas quickly.

For some clients, we incorporate EBITDA benchmarks and other key performance indicators (KPIs) directly into monthly reporting deliverables. This creates a real-time view of performance relative to peers, turning financial reports into a tool for decision-making.

Step 3: Gather Trusted External Data

Here are vetted data sources we help clients navigate:

• Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) performance and compensation reports
• Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) benchmarking tools
• Becker’s annual specialty spotlights
• Public filings from similar-sized healthcare entities

Step 4: Compare Internal vs. External

Overlay internal performance with market standards to highlight improvement areas:

• Overhead vs. peer average
• EBITDA by specialty
• Marketing spend vs. conversion rates

Step 5: Align Strategy to Insights

Use benchmarks to shape future decisions, such as:

• Pricing adjustments
• Staffing plans
• Technology investment
• Service line prioritization

We Can Help

At Elliott Davis, we work closely with clients to base their benchmarking on reliable, up-to-date, and properly structured financial information. Benchmarking and competitive analysis are only as good as the data behind them. That’s why we prioritize data integrity, verifying that inputs are clean and consistent before analysis is layered on.

Need accurate monthly data to strengthen your market position? Contact us today.

The information provided in this communication is of a general nature and should not be considered professional advice. You should not act upon the information provided without obtaining specific professional advice. The information above is subject to change.