Every vendor can show you a module list. What separates them is what happens on the day you want to leave, and what the price does in year two.
The questions
| Ask | A concerning answer |
|---|---|
| Where does the data physically sit? | “In the cloud”, without naming a region |
| Can we self-host? | “Not supported”, with no explanation of why |
| How do we export everything? | A support ticket, or a fee |
| What format does the export use? | A proprietary one, or PDF |
| Who can see patient data internally? | “Only authorised staff”, with no access log |
| What happens at contract end? | Anything other than a stated retention and deletion period |
| Is the price per bed, per user or per site? | A structure that changes as you grow, unstated |
| What is in year two? | A different number from year one, mentioned late |
| What is the implementation charge? | Bundled invisibly, or unbounded |
| Who does the data migration? | “Your team”, discovered after signature |
| What is the support commitment? | No stated response time |
| Can we see it fail? | A demo that only shows the happy path |
The three that matter most
Export format, contract end, and year two pricing. Together they determine whether you have bought software or entered a dependency. A vendor comfortable with all three is telling you something about how they expect to keep you.
Ask to see the failure
Any system demonstrates well on a clean case. Ask what the screen looks like when the payer portal is down, when a claim is rejected at submission, when two departments have entered conflicting data. The answer tells you whether the product was built for the ward or for the demo.
Questions we get asked
What should a hospital ask a software vendor about data ownership?
Where the data physically sits, in what format it can be exported in full, who can see it internally and whether that access is logged, and what happens to it at contract end. A vendor that cannot answer the export question concretely is describing a dependency rather than a purchase.
What is the most overlooked question in hospital software procurement?
What the price does in year two. Implementation charges, per-bed or per-user escalation and renewal uplifts are frequently disclosed late, after a system has been selected on year-one cost. The comparison worth making is the three-year total, including migration and exit.
On the figures in this piece. Every rupee amount above is arithmetic on the assumptions stated beside it, not a market statistic. Where you need published Indian claim data with its source named, that sits on claim data. We publish no figure we cannot show the working for.