In December 2017 the Supreme Court upheld the Medical Council of India's position that a laboratory report can be counter-signed only by a registered medical practitioner with a postgraduate qualification in pathology. The Bombay High Court said the same in 2019. One consequence lands on software: every report carries a named authoriser, and the system has to know who that is and when they released it.
Clinic software does not think that way. It is built around a doctor seeing a patient, writing a prescription and raising a bill. Pathology lab software, sold as an LIS or a LIMS, is built around a sample. Most bad purchases start with not noticing the difference.
The sample is the unit of work
One walk-in patient produces a requisition with four tests on it, two tubes, one test that goes to a referral lab, and eventually one report. All of it is tracked apart from the patient.
In a demo, have the salesperson do all four in front of you:
Define a test once, with specimen type, container, method, units, price and reference ranges, then build a panel from those tests so booking LFT books every component.
Accession a sample: on receipt it gets a lab number and a barcode printed there and then, with collection time recorded.
Reject a sample with a reason (haemolysed, clotted, quantity insufficient) and show what happens to the pending list and the bill.
Send one test to a referral lab and bring the result back, with that lab named on the report.
Barcoding bolted on later gives itself away: the lab number is typed instead of scanned, and the barcode prints from a different screen.
Analysers have to talk to it
Interfacing decides whether your technicians re-type results all day. CLSI LIS02, the specification for transferring information between clinical laboratory instruments and information systems, covers two-way transfer of requests and results between analysers and the LIS, with LIS01 covering the low-level protocol beneath it; it succeeded the older ASTM version. Results going onward to a hospital or clinic system usually travel as HL7 version 2 messages, commonly ORU^R01.
None of that tells you whether the vendor has driven your machine. Ask which analyser models are live in India with them, whether the interface runs both ways (the LIS sends the worklist out, not just takes results in), and what happens on a rerun.
Results that know what normal means
A haemoglobin of 11.5 g/dL means different things for an adult man, a woman in pregnancy and a six-month-old infant. Reference intervals have to vary by age and sex, and for some analytes by method. Enter a paediatric sample in the demo and watch the range change by itself.
Then ask about critical values. NABL 112A, the specific criteria for accreditation of medical laboratories (Issue 01, dated 18 December 2024, used alongside ISO 15189:2022), requires the laboratory to establish and display critical limits for tests needing immediate attention, and to communicate results within those limits to the user or an authorised person after proper documentation. In software: the result flags itself, and the system records who was called, when, and who took the call.
Auto-verification, in the same document, is where cheap systems overpromise. Auto-verified reports should be marked "Auto verified" and stay traceable to the authorised person behind the rules, the middleware needs a validation certificate from its manufacturer which the laboratory independently verifies, and the rules are reviewed once a year. Ask to see the rule editor and the certificate.
Authorisation and the paper behind it
NABL 112A requires the report to identify, by name or signature, the person authorising release. So the system needs pathologist accounts with real credentials behind them, a pending-authorisation queue, an amendment path that keeps the original version visible, and a record of who changed what. Only after that does delivery matter: the report goes to the patient on WhatsApp, SMS or a portal link, and the system logs when it went and to which number.
Staffing rules sit beside this. Large and very large laboratories are expected to have an MD, DNB, DCP or PhD in every discipline in scope, medium laboratories at least one full time, with part time defined as four hours a day minimum. If visiting consultants authorise your reports, the system has to support that, not one shared login at the front desk.
For retention, NABL sets minimums and expects any stricter national or local rule on top. They include one month for requisition forms, worksheets and reports across disciplines, and five years for histopathology and cytopathology reports, blocks and slides, flow cytometry data and bone marrow aspiration slides. Records may be kept as physical copies or electronically, which is the sentence that lets a well-run LIS carry the documentation load.
What Indian vendors publish
From each vendor's own pricing page, checked on 18 September 2026. Monthly figures are how the vendor displays an annual price.
Vendor | Plan | Published price | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
Labsmart | Basic, pathology | ₹4,999 + GST a year (₹417/month) | Reporting, registration, reports by SMS, WhatsApp, email |
Labsmart | Premium, pathology | ₹9,999 + GST a year (₹833/month) | Adds expense tracking and data export |
Health Amaze | Basic | ₹5,999 a year (₹499/month) | Barcodes, digital signatures, 100 free messages a month |
Health Amaze | Advanced | ₹9,999 a year (₹833/month) | Adds collection centre portal; GST treatment not stated |
CrelioHealth | Smart to Power | US dollar pricing, for the USA and Canada | No rupee price published; ask for a quote |
Software subscriptions carry 18% GST, so read every figure as pre-tax unless the page says otherwise. Note what these prices exclude: interfacing, middleware and NABL consultancy are quoted separately.
Where ExaHealth stops
ExaHealth is general clinic software and it is not an LIS. It has no test master, no accessioning, no analyser interfacing and no pathologist authorisation queue, so it will not run a laboratory and is not sold as one. What it covers is the clinic side of a practice that also orders tests: appointments and a live queue, a patient file that opens with past visits and documents loaded, one-tap invoices with a view of who has paid, and prescriptions and lab reports sent to patients on WhatsApp with no app to install. It is an ABDM-certified PHR and health locker, so with consent a patient's ABHA can be linked to receive and share records. For the lab itself, buy a lab system.
A sensible first step
Pick the three things your lab does most often, usually accessioning, result entry and authorisation, and make every vendor perform them on your own test list. A vendor who needs to "check with the product team" about interfacing has not driven your analyser. For which category of product you need at all, see our medical software buyer's guide; if the lab is a new facility, start with clinical establishment registration.
If it is the clinic side you are equipping alongside the lab, the ExaHealth list for doctors sets out what it covers.
Sources
Supreme Court, 12 December 2017 (Gogoi and Banumathi JJ), upheld the MCI position that…
NABL 112A, "Specific Criteria for Accreditation of Medical Laboratories", Issue No. 01,…
CLSI LIS02, 2nd edition (20 October 2004), "Specification for Transferring Information…
Laboratory results are commonly reported onward as HL7 v2 ORU^R01 messages
Labsmart published prices (pathology plans Basic ₹4,999 + GST a year shown as ₹417 a month;…
Health Amaze published prices (Basic ₹5,999 a year shown as ₹499 a month; Standard ₹7,499…
CrelioHealth publishes plan prices in US dollars and states they apply to the USA and…
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I run a pathology lab on clinic management software?
Not past a very small volume. Clinic software has no test master, no accession numbers and no analyser interface, so samples get tracked in a register and results get typed twice. The moment you apply for accreditation, the documentation trail becomes the problem.
What does NABL 112A require from software?
It is a criteria document for laboratories, not for software, so no product is "NABL certified" by itself. What it requires of the lab lands on the system: reports identifying the person authorising release, displayed critical limits with documented communication, marked and traceable auto-verification, and records kept for the listed minimum periods, which the document allows to be electronic.
Who can sign a lab report in India?
The Supreme Court in December 2017 upheld that a laboratory report can be counter-signed only by a registered medical practitioner with a postgraduate qualification in pathology, and the Bombay High Court took the same view in 2019. Build your user roles around that before you configure anything else.
How much does pathology lab software cost in India?
Vendors who publish rupee prices are in the ₹5,000 to ₹15,000 a year range for a single centre, before 18% GST: Labsmart lists ₹4,999 to ₹9,999 + GST a year for pathology plans, Health Amaze ₹5,999 to ₹9,999 a year (both checked 18 September 2026). Larger platforms quote on request, and CrelioHealth publishes prices only for the USA and Canada. Interfacing and onboarding are usually extra, so ask for them in writing.