In this guide 6 sections
Ask four groups of questions before you sign. Do the consultation templates fit your specialty? Does billing handle your insurers and packages? Can you export every record in a readable format, and who holds the data and the backups if the vendor closes or is sold?
Do the templates fit how your specialty consults?
A demo built for a general physician rarely suits a dentist or a dermatologist, so ask to see your own case on screen from first entry to printed prescription. Not a slide. Not a recording. Your case, live.
A dental chart needs tooth numbering, surface marking by tooth face, and a staged treatment plan whose visits are booked, charged and ticked off one at a time. A skin clinic needs before and after photos tied to a body site and a running session count, while an eye clinic needs refraction and pressure readings.
Ask who can change a template, you or the vendor, how long a change takes, and whether a change made for one doctor alters every other doctor’s form. Locked forms drift back to paper within a month.
- Show a first visit, a review visit and a procedure note for my specialty
- Can the doctor edit fields without calling support?
- Where do scanned reports, X-rays and photos attach to the visit?
- Does a prescription print on our own letterhead with the registration number?
Can billing cope with insurers and packages?
Billing eats the most desk time. Test it hardest. Ask the vendor to raise a bill for a cashless insurer patient with a co-payment, then another for a package patient who has used three of five sessions.
Test a rejected claim. Is there a field for the reason, a way to resubmit, and a report of claims still pending after the insurer’s payment window has passed? Printing invoices alone chases no money.
Ask about discounts, advances, refunds and a doctor’s share of each fee, and about the daily cash close that must match the drawer. Each should leave a trail.
- Insurer and third party panels with their own rate lists
- Package and membership balances shown at the desk
- Advance, refund and credit note entries
- Doctor-wise collection and share report
- Daily cash close that matches the drawer
Can you take your records with you?
Records belong to your patients and to you. They do not belong to the software. Ask for a sample export before you pay, open it in a spreadsheet, and see whether the columns make sense to someone who has never used the product.
A good answer names the formats: CSV for tables, PDF for notes and reports, and the original image files for scans, each tested on a sample. A weak answer is only a promise.
Ask how long an export takes for a clinic with ten years of visits, whether it costs extra, and who at the vendor will run it. Then ask what gets left out. Attachments and audit history are often skipped.
- Full patient list with visit history in CSV
- Notes, prescriptions and reports as PDF
- Images and scans in their original file types
- Billing and payment history with dates and users
What happens to your records if the vendor stops?
Small vendors close, get sold or change direction. Plan for that now. Ask where the servers sit, who pays the hosting bill, and whether you hold a backup copy of your own that you have actually restored once.
A source code escrow or a written exit clause gives you something firm to rely on, which a verbal assurance from a friendly salesperson never will. Ask for a notice period of several months, a promise to hand over a database copy before any shutdown, and a named person who will actually send it.
Read the support terms as well. Who answers on a Saturday morning, when the queue is long and the printer will not respond, and how long does the vendor take to call back?
How to score the answers and decide
Put vendors in columns and questions in rows. Mark each answer as shown live, promised in writing, or only said aloud, because only the first two count at the end of the demo. Spoken promises do not.
Ask each vendor for two clinics of your size and specialty that you can phone, then ask those doctors what went wrong in the first month. No brochure can match what they say.
Finish with a paid pilot. Run it for one or two weeks at a single desk with real patients, compare the day’s cash with the day’s bills, and note every gap.
Clinic software vendor scorecard
A table on one page with vendors across the top and rows grouped into templates, billing, data export, exit terms and support. Each cell holds one mark. The three marks are shown live, written or spoken, and a notes column sits beside every vendor for the details of what was seen. The last block lists the reference clinics you phoned, the doctor spoken to at each, and what that doctor said went wrong in the first month of use.
Open a blank worksheet to printQuestions owners ask
How many vendors should a clinic compare?
Three is enough for most clinics. Fewer leaves you without a benchmark, and more makes the demos blur together until nobody remembers which vendor showed which screen first. Ask all of them the same list in the same order, and write down every answer while the demo is still running.
Is cloud or local software better for a clinic?
Neither wins on its own. Cloud software needs a steady internet line and a clear backup policy, while local software needs someone to maintain the machine and the backup. Ask each vendor how a power cut or a dead line is handled, and ask to see the clinic keep running through one.
Should the doctor or the administrator run the demo?
Both should watch. The doctor judges the consultation screens, the administrator judges billing and reports, and each should write a verdict before they compare notes. Disagreement between them is useful, so note it.
Can we migrate old records from paper or another system?
Usually in part. Patient lists and balances move well, while handwritten notes are scanned and attached to each patient as images, which can be viewed but not searched. Ask the vendor to migrate a sample of fifty patients first, then check the names, balances and last visit dates yourself before approving the full load.