Clinic management software in India: what to check before you buy

Clinic management software is the system a clinic runs its day on: the front desk, the doctor’s room, the pharmacy counter and the evening’s collections. Most Indian clinics buy it after paper registers, a billing program on the reception computer and a WhatsApp group between staff have stopped keeping up with the queue.

This guide is for doctors and clinic owners comparing systems, from a single-doctor clinic to a polyclinic with a pharmacy and a lab. It sets out what the software has to do at each point in a visit, and ends with a list of things to ask in any demo, including ours.

1. The front desk: tokens, walk-ins and bookings

In most Indian clinics the morning is walk-ins, not appointments. The software has to handle a token queue first and a calendar second.

Look for:

• Walk-in registration in under a minute, with a search by phone number that finds the patient’s existing record instead of creating a second one.
• A token for every visit and a queue the doctor and the desk both see, with how long each patient has waited.
• Bookings and walk-ins in the same queue, so a booked review is checked in rather than registered again.
• Visit types that decide the fee. A new patient, a review within the free window and a revisit after it are charged differently in most clinics. The software should suggest which one it is from the patient’s history, and let the desk change it.
• Self check-in. A QR code at the desk that patients scan to register or check in on their own phone saves the desk time on a busy morning.

2. The nurse or assistant

Vitals, weight and height, allergies and past conditions are usually taken before the doctor sees the patient. They should be entered once, appear at the top of the doctor’s screen, and stay on the chart for the next visit. An allergy typed by reception should be marked as unconfirmed until a clinician checks it.

3. The doctor’s notes

The note is where clinic software is most often abandoned, because typing slows a busy OPD down. What helps:

• Templates for the visits the clinic sees most.
• A note drafted from the consult. Some systems record the consultation and draft a structured note (subjective, objective, assessment, plan) for the doctor to read and sign. Ask which languages the drafting understands: many consults move between English and Hindi or Tamil within a sentence.
• Diagnoses with ICD-10 codes, so the clinic can later count how many diabetics it sees, or find every patient with a condition.
• The history on one screen: past visits, prescriptions, results and allergies, without opening five tabs.

4. Prescriptions, lab orders and referrals

A prescription written in the software should be printable, readable by the patient, and sent to the clinic’s pharmacy without being copied by hand. Look for doses that default sensibly from the medicine’s form, tapering schedules written as dated steps, and a search over the brands the pharmacy actually stocks. Lab tests should be ordered from a catalog, with the results returning to the patient’s chart. A referral letter should carry the diagnosis and the reason, and go to a specialist from the clinic’s own directory.

5. The pharmacy in the building

Many clinics run a pharmacy beside the consulting room. If the pharmacy is on a different system, every prescription is typed twice and the clinic cannot see what it dispensed. Ask whether the doctor’s prescription arrives at the counter as a bill ready to collect, whether stock is held by batch and expiry, and whether the Schedule H1 register prints from the same data.

6. Billing and the day’s money

A clinic’s money comes in through the consult fee, procedures, the pharmacy, the lab and sometimes an optical counter. The software should:

• Collect a patient’s bills on one payment, by cash, UPI or card, or split across them.
• Take UPI by QR or a payment link the patient can pay from their phone.
• Hold changes to a paid bill for the owner’s approval. A bill edited or voided at the counter without a record is the most common way money goes missing in a clinic.
• Close the day: what the bills say against the cash counted in the drawer, with a day sheet the owner can read in a minute.

Health care services by a clinic are exempt from GST, but a pharmacy or optical shop inside it is not. If the clinic runs one, the bills there need GST and the purchases need input tax credit, which the software should handle without a separate accounting program.

7. Follow-ups, reminders and the patient’s phone

Patients who miss a review are patients a clinic loses. Look for a list of follow-ups due, reminders for booked visits, and a way for patients to read their prescriptions, visit summaries and bills on their own phone, so the paper does not need to come back with them.

8. Records, ABHA and moving in

The record has to last. Ask how it links to the patient’s ABHA number, what format the records are kept in, and how the clinic’s existing patient register and stock list are brought in. A clinic arriving from paper also needs to enter past visits after the fact, with the record saying they were entered later.

Questions to ask in any clinic software demo

1. Register a walk-in by phone number, then register the same person again and see what happens.
2. Show a booked review arriving at the desk, and how its fee differs from a new patient’s.
3. Write a prescription with a tapering dose and show it at the pharmacy counter.
4. Collect a consult fee and a pharmacy bill on one UPI payment.
5. Edit a paid bill from the reception login and show who has to approve it.
6. Close the day and show the day sheet.
7. Show what the patient sees on their phone after the visit.

Where 92health fits

92health is an EMR and clinic management system used by clinics, hospitals, pharmacies, labs and optical shops in India. For a general practice clinic it covers the points above:

• a token queue with walk-ins and bookings together, visits sorted as new, review or revisit, and QR self check-in;
• vitals and history from the nurse at the top of the doctor’s screen;
• SOAP notes drafted from the recorded consult in English, Hindi or Tamil, with ICD-10 diagnoses;
• prescriptions sent to the pharmacy counter, lab orders, referral letters and medical certificates;
• one counter for consult, pharmacy and procedure bills, by cash, UPI or a payment link, with changes to paid bills held for approval and a day close;
• records linked to ABHA numbers and kept in FHIR R4.

It runs in the browser, so a clinic in Coimbatore, Madurai, Vijayawada or Tirupati uses the same system as one in Chennai. If you want to see it on your own cases, book a demo. Bring the questions above.