Being ₹1,150 short at the end of a Saturday rarely means someone took money. At a two-doctor paediatric clinic it's more likely that a nebuliser session went unrecorded, a sibling was seen "quickly" without a file being opened, and a follow-up was billed at the new-patient fee and corrected by hand. By Monday nobody remembers which. That is what revenue leakage looks like in a clinic, and it is the specific problem clinic billing software should be judged on.
Where the money goes
Leakage rarely comes from one big error. It comes from small ones repeated every day:
Visits that never reach billing. A walk-in during the 11 a.m. rush, or a review of old reports "for two minutes".
The wrong fee tier. New-patient and follow-up rates mixed up by a desk working from memory.
Procedures folded into the consultation. Dressings, injections, nebulisation, ECGs and in-house glucose checks done but not itemised.
Cash and UPI that don't reconcile. A notebook says one thing; the drawer and UPI app another.
Claims that go quiet. An insurance or corporate claim nobody follows up can age out; filing timelines differ by insurer and TPA, so read each one's terms.
The test: can a bill be skipped?
Features that stop leakage make it hard to finish a visit without a correct bill.
Billing comes out of the visit record. If closing the consultation generates the bill, an unbilled visit becomes a flagged exception.
Procedures are a catalogue, not a text box. When "injection IM" or "dressing, small" is a priced line item, it gets tapped during the visit; free text gets skipped in a full waiting room.
Reconciliation is a daily screen showing expected versus received, split by cash, UPI and card, so that ₹1,150 gap is traced on Saturday night, not at month end. UPI payments should mark the bill paid automatically.
Where GST applies on a clinic bill
Notification No. 12/2017-Central Tax (Rate), at serial number 74, sets a Nil rate for "health care services by a clinical establishment, an authorised medical practitioner or para-medics". Health care services are defined as diagnosis, treatment or care for illness, injury, deformity, abnormality or pregnancy in any recognised system of medicine, so consultations, procedures and diagnostics done as part of care are exempt. The carve-outs are hair transplants and cosmetic or plastic surgery, unless reconstructive (congenital defects, injury, trauma and similar).
GST shows up in two places:
Cosmetic services, such as an aesthetic procedure at a dermatology clinic.
Medicines or products sold over the counter (not consumables used during treatment), which carry their own rates: after the 56th GST Council meeting, most medicines moved from 12% to 5% from 22 September 2025, and 33 lifesaving drugs went to nil, as reported by All India Radio's News on Air and in EY India's tax alert.
Set each catalogue item's tax treatment once, with your accountant, instead of deciding it at the desk.
Separately, the software subscription is not a healthcare service. IT and software services fall under heading 9983 and are taxed at 18% under Notification No. 11/2017-Central Tax (Rate), even when your consultation fees are exempt.
Thinking about the software's cost
Look at two numbers. First, what the tool takes from each payment. Practo's own Ray plans page, checked in September 2026, lists its CM Atom plan at ₹999 a month on a one-year term, with its Ray Payment Solution at 2% per transaction; the Clinic Management plan lists 1.8%. On ₹4 lakh a month of digital collections, 2% is ₹8,000, eight times the subscription. Terms matter too: the same page shows the Clinic Management plan at ₹999 a month only on a four-year term, and ₹1,499 on a one-year term.
Second, how the price scales. Clinicea's pricing page lists its Starter plan at ₹1,999 per practitioner per month, so a three-doctor clinic pays three times that. Neither page says whether tax is included; get that in writing.
Set both against your own leakage, measured as described in the next section. If, say, ₹6,000 to ₹8,000 a month is slipping through, a tool that recovers most of it pays for itself; if the gap is tiny, the case rests on time saved.
Measure your own leak before you shop
Take one ordinary week and, from the doctor's own list (not the billing register), note every patient, procedure and expected fee. Compare that with what reached cash, UPI and card. The pattern matters more than the total. Missed dressings need a different fix from wrong follow-up fees, and knowing which you have tells you which feature to test hardest.
What ExaHealth's billing is built to do
ExaHealth's billing covers part of this list. An invoice takes one tap, and a billing view separates settled visits from pending ones, so the desk can chase dues the same day instead of finding them at month end. Receipts go to patients on WhatsApp, and reports and analytics track collections over time. Clinic plans are priced on request. Load your own fee list and run it through the checks below, the same as any other product on your shortlist.
Before you sign
Watch a full visit from check-in to receipt, with a procedure and a split payment, then the daily reconciliation screen.
Confirm exempt and taxable items can sit on one bill, each with its own GST treatment.
Get the transaction fee, contract term and all-in price (including 18% GST on the subscription) in writing.
Check that billing data exports cleanly for your accountant.
Want a closer look at invoices, payment tracking and WhatsApp receipts? They're covered on ExaHealth's features for doctors page.
See also Medical Billing Software for Indian Clinics: What to Look For and Clinic Management Software: The Complete Guide for Indian Clinics (2026).