A messy price list costs you money quietly. Staff guess at rates, the same procedure gets billed three different ways, and the wrong GST goes on half the invoices. The fix is boring but powerful: a clean service catalogue where every item is defined once, with its price, its code, and its tax rate. Get that right and the counter stops being a place where mistakes happen.
Here's how to build one for an Indian clinic.
Start by separating three things
Most billing confusion comes from mixing up what you're actually selling. There are three kinds of lines on a clinic bill, and they behave differently:
- Consultations. A doctor's time. This is a service.
- Procedures. A dressing, an injection, a minor surgery, a therapy session. Also services.
- Products. Medicines, a brace, a device, anything handed over the counter. These are goods.
The distinction isn't academic. Services carry a SAC (Services Accounting Code); goods carry an HSN (Harmonised System of Nomenclature) code. Both go on a proper GST invoice. If you'd like the full breakdown, see our explainer on HSN and SAC codes for clinics.
So before you set a single price, sort every item you sell into one of those three buckets. That sorting decides which code each line needs.
How to actually set the price
Pricing is where owner-doctors either overthink it or wing it. Neither works. Build each price from three layers.
Start with cost. For a service, that's the practitioner's time, the consumables it burns, a slice of equipment depreciation, and a share of rent and staff salaries. You don't need accounting-grade precision. A rough cost per service is enough to stop you pricing below water.
Add the margin you need. This is what keeps the clinic running and lets you reinvest. Be honest about it. A service priced at break-even isn't a service, it's a favour.
Sanity-check against the market. What do comparable clinics in your area charge for the same work? You don't have to match them, but if you're 40% above or below, you should know why. Maybe your equipment justifies a premium. Maybe you're leaving money on the table.
The trap to avoid: pricing purely on minutes. A five-minute procedure that solves a patient's problem is worth more than the clock suggests. Price the outcome, not just the time.
Set the GST treatment per line, not per clinic
This is the part clinics get wrong most often. GST on a clinic isn't one switch. Each line in your catalogue can be treated differently.
Many clinical services are GST-exempt under healthcare provisions. But the exemption is not blanket. Product sales are often taxable. Certain procedures, particularly cosmetic or aesthetic ones, can be taxable too. So you can't slap one rate across the whole catalogue and walk away.
Rates and exemptions also change, and the official position lives on the CBIC GST portal. Because of that, confirm each line's HSN/SAC code and rate with a chartered accountant before you lock the catalogue. This guide is a primer, not tax advice, and you don't want to discover a misclassified line at assessment time.
The practical move: set each line's code and rate once, with your CA, then let your billing system carry them onto every invoice. For more on this, our GST billing software page walks through how line-by-line GST flows from the catalogue onto the bill, and if you want to check a figure by hand, the GST calculator does the split for you.
Handling bundles
Clinics love packages. A "first-visit assessment" that wraps a consultation and a basic test, or a procedure quoted as one all-in price. The honest way to model this matters.
In a clean catalogue, a bundle is just a single self-priced service: one line, one price, one HSN/SAC code, one tax rate. You decide the bundle price, give it a code, and it bills as one item. That keeps the invoice clean and the GST unambiguous.
What a bundle is not, at least in Avinya Plus, is a visit counter or a membership. There's no automatic "3 of 10 sessions used" tracker, no subscription that renews. If a package is meant to cover several visits, you track those visits operationally, the way you already do, and the bundle line captures the price. Knowing this up front saves you from designing a package the system can't enforce.
A short worked example
Say you run a small dermatology clinic. Three catalogue lines:
- Consultation, ₹600. A service, SAC code, treated per your CA's guidance on clinical consultations.
- Chemical peel (cosmetic), ₹3,000. A service, but a cosmetic procedure, which can be taxable. Suppose your CA confirms it's taxable: you set the line's SAC code and the applicable rate once. From then on, billing the peel adds the correct CGST + SGST automatically (or IGST for an inter-state patient).
- Sunscreen sold at the counter, ₹450. A product, so an HSN code, with its own tax rate.
A patient who has a consultation, a peel, and buys the sunscreen gets one invoice with three lines, each carrying its own code and its own GST. You typed no codes and calculated no tax at the counter. The catalogue did it. That's the whole point: define it once, bill it right forever.
(I've used illustrative rupee figures and left the actual GST rates to your CA on purpose. Don't copy a rate from a blog post onto a real invoice.)
Review on a schedule, not by accident
A catalogue isn't set-and-forget. Costs drift. A consumable supplier raises prices, you buy new equipment, salaries go up. Review your prices at least once a year, and immediately if a major cost jumps.
In each review, ask two questions per line. Does the price still cover cost plus margin? And do the code and rate still match the current GST position? When you update the catalogue, every future bill follows the new figure with no retraining at the counter.
This is also where pricing connects to the rest of your operations. Your clinic metrics like average ticket size tell you whether your pricing is landing, and clean pricing is half the battle in recovering outstanding dues: patients dispute bills they don't understand far more than bills that are clear. For the bigger picture, this fits into the broader clinic operations playbook.
The one habit that fixes most of it
If you take one thing from this: stop pricing at the counter. Every rate, every code, every tax treatment should already be decided and stored before a patient ever reaches the desk. Build the catalogue carefully once, with your accountant on the GST lines, and the daily billing becomes mechanical, which is exactly what you want it to be.
Frequently asked questions
- How should I structure my clinic's service catalogue?
- Separate it into three buckets: consultations, procedures, and products. Consultations and procedures are services and carry a SAC code. Products you sell over the counter are goods and carry an HSN code. Give each line its own price and tax rate so the right amount and GST flow onto every invoice without manual entry.
- How do I price a clinic service?
- Start from your real cost per service: practitioner time, consumables, equipment depreciation, and a share of rent and staff. Add the margin you need to stay sustainable, then sanity-check against what nearby clinics charge for the same work. Price the value of the outcome, not just the minutes spent.
- Can I bundle services into a package in Avinya Plus?
- Yes, but a bundle is modelled as a single self-priced service: one line, one price, one HSN/SAC code, one tax rate. There is no visit counter, no membership, and no subscription. If a package is meant to cover several visits, you track those visits operationally, not through an automatic session counter.
- What GST rate should each catalogue line carry?
- It depends on the line. Many clinical services are GST-exempt, but the exemption is not blanket, and product sales or certain procedures can be taxable. Rates and exemptions change, so confirm each line's HSN/SAC code and rate with a chartered accountant. Treat this as a primer, not tax advice.
- How often should I review my clinic's prices?
- Review at least once a year, and sooner if a key cost jumps, like a consumable supplier hike or a new piece of equipment. Check that each line still covers its cost with margin, and that codes and rates match the latest GST position. Update the catalogue once and every future bill follows.