How to choose your practice software.
Six questions, an honest comparison, and the traps colleagues have walked into. Use all of it on every vendor, including us.
Ask these before any demo
Is it on the eSanté SONS V2 list?
That list is the only proof that a product can really do PID V2 and send mémoires to the CNS. 'Compatible' and 'coming soon' are not the same thing. The Agence eSanté publishes it and it takes a minute to look.
Cloud, or a server in a closet?
A server means backups, a maintenance contract, an IT bill and no access from home. Cloud means you open a browser. Ask who is responsible the day the machine in the closet dies, and how old its last backup will be.
What does migration actually include?
A serious answer covers patients, complete treatment histories, notes, prescriptions, attachments, invoices and quotes, mapped field by field and validated with you before go-live. 'We import your patient list' is a different service with the same name.
Does it speak CNS natively?
Nomenclature codes, lettre-clé pricing, the official mémoire and devis templates, the DSD rules. When the Luxembourg layer is an adaptation of a French or German product, every CNS change reaches you late. The next deadline won't wait for it.
What did the software provider ship for the last deadline?
PID arrived in 2024. Digital mémoires become mandatory in October 2026. eCIT and e-prescriptions are queued behind them. How fast a software provider shipped the last deadline is the best predictor of the next one.
What does it really cost, all in?
The subscription is one line. Add the server, the per-workstation licenses, the maintenance contract, the SMS packs and the paid updates. Ask for the all-in monthly figure for your practice size. That is the only number worth comparing.
What everyone has. What some have. What only we have.
No vendor names here. Check any claim yourself in a demo, and read every line with one question in mind: what does it change on the 30th of the month?
What every serious software provider offers
If the demo dwells here, ask what else there is. None of this deserves a premium.
What some offer, with limits
The demo says yes. Daily use tends to come with an asterisk.
Where Clinico stands alone
Every claim here can be verified in a 30-minute demo.
Judge any software on the 30th of the month
With PID, the CNS share is in the account before the patient leaves. The stack of mémoires waiting to be paid stops existing.
Unpaid invoices sit in a live list you work down all month. The month-end export stops being where you discover them.
Mémoires, devis and reminders go out while the patient is still at the desk. Your evenings go back to being evenings.
There is no server, no maintenance contract and no per-workstation licensing to pay for. The subscription is the whole number.
Red flags, from experience
The migration doesn't include everything
Ask exactly what comes across. Some providers move the patient list and leave the treatment history, clinical notes, X-ray links and attachments behind in the old system. Get the list in writing before you sign anything.
There are costs on top of the subscription
A server, a licence per workstation, a VPN, a maintenance contract, SMS packs, a higher support tier. Ask for one all-in monthly figure for a practice your size. If it takes them three emails to produce it, that is your answer.
You pay extra every time the CNS changes something
New tariffs, a new deadline, a new form. With some providers each one arrives as a paid module or a chargeable update, which turns the state's calendar into their revenue plan. Ask what the last two CNS changes cost their clients.
Nobody will tell you how to get your data out
Ask what happens the day you leave: what you get, in which format, how long it takes and what it costs. A straight answer is a good sign. A vague one usually means leaving is meant to be difficult.
It only works on the computer at the front desk
Ask to see it from a phone. If the answer involves remote desktop, a VPN or a technician, then working from the chair or from home is not really possible, whatever the brochure says.
They say PID is coming soon
The Agence eSanté publishes the SONS V2 list and it takes a minute to check. New providers could not join after 30 June 2026, so a product that is not on the list has no easy way on. Check it before you believe anyone, us included.
Where Clinico stands on its own six questions
Clinico is on the Agence eSanté's SONS V2 list for PID V2 and Remboursement digitalisé. It runs in the browser, with nothing to install, on any device. We move your data for you, field by field, and guarantee nothing is lost. It was written in Luxembourg on the CNS nomenclature, not adapted from a foreign product. The price is one monthly amount per full-time practitioner with everything included, and you get your exact figure after one call. Put the same six questions to us.