How much does a medical centre fitout cost?
Rates for general practice, specialist rooms and day procedure, and why the three are not comparable.
The short answer
General practice, specialist consulting and day procedure get quoted as though they are the same build. They aren’t, and the second and third ones are where budgets most often go wrong.
Key points
- $1,400 to $2,200 per square metre for general practice on a warm shell.
- Specialist rooms $1,800 to $2,800; day procedure $2,400 to $3,600.
- Clinical equipment, shielding and licensing are all excluded.
- Design to the RACGP Standards from the first sketch. Retrofitting for accreditation is expensive.
General practice, specialist consulting and day procedure get quoted as though they are the same build. They aren’t, and the second and third ones are where budgets most often go wrong.
Each has its own page with a room schedule and the standards that apply: GP clinics, specialist suites, day procedure, multidisciplinary centres, radiology and pathology and cosmetic clinics.
The rates
All on a warm shell, excluding clinical equipment and GST. Run your own configuration through the cost estimator.
Why the three differ
General practice is a throughput problem. The design questions are how many patients are waiting at nine in the morning, how far a nurse walks between treatment and utility, whether reception can see the door and the waiting room at once, and whether a conversation in one consulting room is audible in the next. Rooms are broadly interchangeable, so the value sits in flow and acoustic separation rather than in any single room.
Specialist rooms are an equipment problem. A slit lamp, a treadmill, a laser or an imaging unit sets the room size, the power, the floor loading, the servicing clearances and sometimes the shielding. Rooms are not interchangeable, patient volumes are lower, and the front of house carries more weight because patients are referred and comparing.
Day procedure is a compliance problem. Procedure rooms, reprocessing, sterile stock storage, upgraded ventilation, and in most cases a different building classification under the National Construction Code. The range is the widest of the three because scope varies enormously by procedure type.
What is in the rate
- Partitioning, doors and hardware
- Ceilings, lighting and power
- Hydraulic services to basins and clinical points
- Mechanical ventilation to the fitted-out areas
- Joinery: reception, benches and storage
- Finishes, data cabling, and builder’s preliminaries
What is not
- Clinical equipment of any kind
- Radiation shielding design and premises licensing
- Base building upgrades the landlord requires
- Cold shell works: air conditioning, ceilings, fire services
- Council and certifier fees, consultant reports
- GST, loose furniture, IT hardware and signage
- Rent and outgoings during construction
The expensive mistake
Designing without the RACGP Standards in front of you. The Standards set expectations for the physical practice: consultation and examination rooms with visual and acoustic privacy, hand hygiene facilities where clinical care happens, secure storage for medicines and records, a treatment space appropriate to the procedures performed.
None of that is difficult to design for at concept stage. All of it is expensive to retrofit three weeks before an accreditation visit. What the Standards actually require of the building.
And the sequencing one
Documenting a specialist suite before the equipment schedule is final. Choose the equipment first, then set out the services around it. Doing it the other way is the most expensive sequencing error in clinical fitout, and it’s very common.
Sources and further reading
Cost ranges on this page are our own indicative planning figures. The requirements referred to above are published by the bodies below.
Standards for general practices, 5th edition. The physical-practice requirements behind general practice accreditation.
Room-by-room design guidance and standard components used across Australian health projects, including consulting, treatment and sterilising rooms.
The National Construction Code: building classification, fire separation, egress, sanitary provisions and access.
Building activity and construction cost data, useful for sanity-checking where trade pricing is heading.
Questions
How much does a medical centre fitout cost in Australia?
Indicatively $1,400 to $2,200 per square metre for general practice on a warm shell, excluding clinical equipment and GST. Specialist consulting rooms run $1,800 to $2,800, and day procedure $2,400 to $3,600.
Why are specialist rooms more expensive than a GP clinic?
Because the equipment sets the build. Room sizes, power, floor loading, servicing clearances and sometimes shielding are all dictated by the equipment schedule, and the front of house carries more weight in a referral practice.
Does the rate include imaging shielding?
No. Shielding is designed by a radiation consultant for the specific unit and its workload, and the premises need a licence from the state radiation regulator. Both are priced separately.
What is the most common budget mistake?
Two of them: designing without the RACGP Standards in front of you, so the practice needs retrofitting before accreditation, and documenting before the equipment schedule is final.
Send us the floor plan
A site assessment tells you what the tenancy can take and what it will cost to get there, ideally before you have signed for it.