Self-employment method
Outpatient Care Centers
21,300 people filed as a nonemployer business under this industry code in 2022 — no payroll, no employees, just them. These are gross receipts reported to the IRS, before any expense is taken out.
Median GROSS RECEIPTS for the year — money in, before rent, materials, fuel, insurance or tax. This is not take-home pay.
Share who grossed under $10,000 for the whole year — before expenses.
The middle half, in gross receipts. A quarter of filers took less than the lower figure.
Source: US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
How often it does not work out
Of the 21,300 people who filed under this code in 2022, 35.54% grossed under $10,000 for the entire year — before a single expense was deducted.
That is a floor, not an estimate. Census publishes GROSS RECEIPTS, not net income. Everyone inside that share earned less than the figure suggests once rent, materials, mileage, insurance and self-employment tax came out — and filers who grossed well above the threshold may still have netted nothing. The true share of people who earn nothing meaningful from this is higher than the number above, never lower.
Denominator: establishments_total = 21,300 · US Census Bureau, Nonemployer Statistics 2022 · view
Every filer, by what they grossed
The full distribution Census publishes. The median above is interpolated inside the band that holds the 50th percentile.
| Gross receipts for the year | Filers | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Under $5,000 | 4,445 | 20.9% |
| $5,000 to $9,999 | 3,125 | 14.7% |
| $10,000 to $24,999 | 4,627 | 21.7% |
| $25,000 to $49,999 | 3,431 | 16.1% |
| $50,000 to $99,999 | 2,704 | 12.7% |
| $100,000 to $249,999 | 1,782 | 8.4% |
| $250,000 to $499,999 | 591 | 2.8% |
| $500,000 to $999,999 | 364 | 1.7% |
| $1,000,000 to $2,499,999 | 231 | 1.1% |
Who this suits
Median gross receipts of $19,985 put the typical filer somewhere between a serious side income and a failing attempt at a full-time one, and the receipts figure alone cannot tell you which.
21,300 filings sit behind this code — a workforce the size of a mid-sized occupation that no payroll survey counts, because none of it runs through a payroll.
13.9% of filers grossed $100,000 or more, which is high for this dataset. A substantial share of this field is running an actual business rather than an occasional one.
Independent practice here suits clinicians who can also run a small business — credentialing, claims, insurance and payroll are the other half of the job.
There is no qualification, licence or minimum to appear in this data — you file and you are counted. Read the receipts distribution as the price of that: no barrier at the door means no filter before the numbers.
Who should not do this
The top quarter of Outpatient Care Centers earns 8.8x the bottom quarter — under $6,408 against over $56,416, a spread of $50,008. Distributions this stretched are usually two different jobs sharing one label, and any average across them means little.
The bottom quarter of Outpatient Care Centers earns under $6,408 — $43,612 below the $50,020 a typical American job pays. Entering at the bottom and waiting is a live risk here, not a theoretical one, and some people never leave that quarter.
Do not start this assuming billed equals paid. The difference between the two is the working capital you will need.
7,570 filers out of 21,300 — 35.5% — reported under $10,000 in gross receipts in 2022. At that share the bottom band is not a warning about beginners; it is a description of a large part of the field.
Take it as a floor, not an estimate. The $10,000 threshold is measured on money received, before materials, rent, fuel, insurance and self-employment tax, so the true share of filers who ended the year with no income is higher than the figure shown — we simply cannot say how much higher.
What the spread tells you
A ratio of 8.8x between the quarters is the signature of a winner-take-most distribution. $19,985 is a real number about a real population, but nobody entering Outpatient Care Centers should plan around it.
The middle half of this field earns between $6,408 and $56,416. That is $50,008 of range, with $19,985 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
The 75th percentile is $56,416. Reaching it from the $19,985 midpoint is $36,431 a year; reaching it from the $6,408 that the bottom quarter of Outpatient Care Centers earn is $50,008.
$13,577 below the midpoint, $36,431 above it. That asymmetry is extreme even for this data, and it means every summary of Outpatient Care Centers that is not a median — including any average you see quoted elsewhere — is describing the top of the range rather than the middle.
Converted to a 2,080-hour year, the receipts run $3.08 an hour at the 25th percentile, $9.60 at the midpoint and $27.12 at the 75th. Read them as revenue per hour worked; the equivalent wage is lower by whatever this work costs to do.
Straight from the Census bands for Outpatient Care Centers: 4,445 filers under $5,000, 3,125 between $5,000 and $9,999, 4,627 between $10,000 and $24,999, 2,968 above $100,000 and 1,186 above $250,000.
What these figures are, and what they are not
Read every figure here as GROSS RECEIPTS rather than income. $19,985 is turnover — the money that passed through Outpatient Care Centers before expenses. What is left after costs is a different and much smaller number that this dataset does not publish.
The hourly number on this page is $19,985 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Outpatient Care Centers, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else