Clinic software for Lahore, with PHC licensing in mind

The Punjab Healthcare Commission was set up by the Punjab Healthcare Commission Act 2010, and every public and private healthcare establishment in Punjab has to be registered and licensed. GP clinics and dental clinics are Category III, which means outpatient only.

The process on PHC's site runs like this: register, apply for a licence with your documents and fee within 30 days, receive a provisional licence along with the standards, send staff for PHC's training, then a pre-assessment and an inspection. If you pass, the regular licence is valid for five years.

PHC's fee page (in effect since December 2021) lists registration for a Category III clinic as free online or Rs 2,000 offline. The five-year licence is Rs 10,000 for a GP or single-doctor clinic and for a single-chair dental clinic, and Rs 40,000 for a dental clinic with more than one chair. Fees are non-refundable and apply again at renewal.

PHC inspects against its Minimum Service Delivery Standards (MSDS). The MSDS for GP, family physician and specialist clinics has 18 standards and 47 indicators; the dental MSDS has 23 standards and 74 indicators. They cover areas such as medication management, infection control, human resources and information management. PHC releases the full manuals through a request form, so we haven't reproduced them here.

What inspectors find gives a fair idea of what matters. Reporting on a PHC inspection drive in October 2026 listed poor patient records, waste handling, infection control, sterilisation and expired medicines among the violations. Every one of those is something you can show a record for.

Patient records: every patient has a file with dated visits (complaint, history, allergies, investigations, diagnosis, treatment and the doctor), prescriptions and payments.

Sterilisation: the sterilization log records failed cycles and equipment breakdowns, such as a vacuum failure, poor steam or an overloaded chamber, along with the action taken and who reported it. It logs problems, not every routine cycle.

Medicines: the drug inventory keeps batch, supplier, storage and expiry, and shows what expires within 90 days.

Waste: the waste disposal log records the date, the type of waste, how much and who authorised it.

Incidents and complaints: sentinel events (a wrong tooth, a broken file, a broken needle and so on) with root cause and corrective action, and a complaints QR code that gives patients a way to complain and gives you a register of what came in and how it was resolved.

Staff: a staff list with roles, and daily attendance.

Each register prints as a report. To be clear, software doesn't get you a licence. It keeps the paperwork an inspector asks about in one place, dated, instead of in four notebooks.

Patients can complain to PHC's Directorate of Patient Rights and Complaints within 60 days, in writing with a sworn affidavit; anonymous complaints aren't accepted. PHC's guidance says patients should first complain to the clinic in writing, unless the clinic has no complaint system.

That is a good reason to have one. FindClinica's complaints QR code lets a patient send feedback from their phone, with or without their name, and each complaint gets a ticket number and a status you update. A complaint about a long wait or a bill is much easier to settle at the clinic than at the commission.

Our team is in Lahore. You can reach us on WhatsApp at +92 316 4251804, pay in rupees by bank transfer or QR code, and start on the free plan, which has no limit on patients and includes the desktop app for reception. Pro is PKR 2,000 a month and adds appointment reminders. See all plans.