Free hospital management software in India: what “free” should and should not mean

Search for free hospital software in India and you will find three very different things sold under one word. A genuinely free tool with no support. A "free trial" that ends in a bill. And free software that is free because something else about you is the product. They look the same on a landing page, and they are not the same.

This is how we would read any offer of free hospital management software, including ours. Seven questions, and what a good answer sounds like.

1. Free for how long, and from when?

"Free" with no end date is usually not a promise, only a gap in the wording. Ask for the period and the day it starts. A fair offer says both in writing.

Ours is free for up to three years, and the three years count from a Day 1 we confirm to you in writing after we have checked your hospital and trained your staff. It does not run from the day you first called. The programme page sets out the steps.

2. What happens when the free period ends?

This is the question that decides whether free was a gift or a trap. Ask three things: will you be told before any charge, how long before, and can you leave without a penalty.

We commit to at least three months' written notice before any charge, with the plan and price in the letter. If you decide not to continue, you can ask for your export and leave. Today's list prices are public, so you can plan ahead. The price list in force when we write to you is the one that applies.

3. Who owns the data, and can you take it with you?

Free software has to be paid for somehow. Read the terms, not the sales page, and look for any clause that lets the vendor use your hospital's data for its own purposes. Then ask what a full export looks like and how long it takes.

Your records stay yours. We do not sell, rent or trade them, we run no advertising, and nothing your hospital enters is sent to an AI system. You can read why in why we built hospital software with no AI touching your data.

4. Where do the patient documents live?

Scanned reports and documents are the hardest part of a hospital's data to rebuild. Ask where they are kept, whose account it is, and who can delete them.

In the free programme the documents live in a storage bucket in your own name, on Amazon S3 or any S3-compatible service. We keep no standing copy (the one exception is a temporary file, deleted within 24 hours, made only if your administrator exports your data), and you pay the storage provider directly. It is one of three things we ask in return, and it is also why file storage is not our cost to carry. How that works is on the storage page.

5. Does the vendor check who it gives it to?

This one sounds strange, but it matters. If anyone can sign up for free, fake and test hospitals invite abuse, and abuse puts every real hospital's data and the service at risk. A vendor that checks is protecting you.

We ask for the hospital's name and address, its registration or licence number where the law requires one, a phone that rings at the hospital, and a call with us. It is a check that the hospital exists, not an inspection of your care.

6. What is not free?

Be suspicious of "everything is free" with no list of exceptions. Real offers have edges, and good vendors name them.

Ours: the software is free of subscription fees, but AI features, if we ever add any, would be a separate and optional paid extra, and costs that depend on use, such as messaging, are not included. Your own costs are your storage account, your devices and your internet.

7. What does the Terms document say, as opposed to the web page?

A marketing page can say anything. The Terms are what apply. Open them and look for the free programme section, the fair use rules, what the vendor promises about availability, and how either side can end the arrangement.

We wrote ours in plain sections, with a Fair Use Policy and a clear statement of what the free programme does and does not promise. They are public: read the Terms before you apply.

A short way to use this

Ask every vendor, in writing, for the free period and its start date, the notice before charging, the data export, where documents are kept, and what is excluded. Mark each answer as in writing, said aloud or vague. Anything that matters and is not in writing is a risk you are choosing to take.

If you would like to put these questions to us, call or message us. We would rather you ask the awkward ones first.