What should clinic software do? A checklist before you choose

Before you look at any demo: write down your clinic’s day

Most clinics choose software from the demo and find the problems a month later. Before you talk to any vendor, sit down with your receptionist and assistant and write down an ordinary day:

• How do patients book? Phone? WhatsApp? Walking in?
• Where is the visit recorded, and by whom?
• How do you know what a patient has paid and what is still due?
• What gets stuck today, or takes longer than it should?

That page is the yardstick you measure every option against.

1. Appointments and reminders

• A calendar per doctor, with different lengths for each type of appointment: consultation, follow-up, session.
• A reminder to the patient before the appointment, on WhatsApp, because that’s where patients here are.
• Room for walk-ins in the same calendar, so nothing clashes.

2. The patient file

• History and notes in one place, not spread over paper and notebooks.
• Quick search by name or phone number, because you have ten patients called Mohammad Ahmad.
• One file per patient, with a warning if you try to open a duplicate.

3. Every visit linked to its appointment

When the visit is tied to the appointment, you know who came and who didn’t, and what was done each time, without digging through notebooks. Ask: when I open an appointment, do I see the patient’s file on the same screen?

4. Payments and balances

• Partial payments: a patient pays for part of a treatment course now and the rest later.
• A balance per patient, clear at a glance.
• End-of-day close: how much came in today, in cash and otherwise.

5. Who sees what

Not everyone in the clinic needs to see everything. The receptionist needs appointments and payments; the doctor needs the full file. Ask:

• Are there different permissions for each role?
• Does each staff member have their own login, or does everyone share one?
• Does the software record who opened or changed a file?

Health data is sensitive data, and a single shared password on the reception computer is a common mistake.

6. Data: where it lives and how you get it out

• Where is it stored? In which country, and with whom?
• Are there backups? How often? Have they ever tested restoring from one?
• If you leave, can you export your files in a format that opens outside their software?

7. Arabic and the phone

• An Arabic interface, with names written correctly right to left.
• Doctors can see their appointments on their phone, not only on the clinic computer.

8. Support

When something breaks at 10 am with a full waiting room, who answers? Ask whether support is in Jordan, in Arabic, and on WhatsApp or by phone.

Ten questions to ask any vendor, including us

1. How do patients book, and how do they get reminders?
2. Can I set different lengths per appointment type and per doctor?
3. How do you prevent two appointments at the same time?
4. What goes in the patient file?
5. Is each visit linked to its appointment automatically?
6. How are partial payments and balances recorded?
7. Are there permissions and a personal login for each staff member?
8. Where is the data stored, and are there backups?
9. How do I get my data out if I leave?
10. Who supports me, how, and when?

Appointments, files and payments in one place

Afia keeps the patient file, visits and payments, linked to the Tfaddal calendar. Each visit is saved in the patient’s file with its appointment, and you see what each patient has paid and what is still due. It’s made for clinics with one doctor or several.