Getting Started

Your clinic is live. This page walks the person who runs it — the clinic administrator — and the doctors through everything worth setting up on the first day. Tick the boxes as you go; your progress is remembered on this device.

Your setup checklist

Steps 1–11 work on every plan, including Free. Steps 12–13 apply only to the extra modules your clinic has switched on. Steps marked Optional can wait until you need them.

Core setup — every clinic

1Sign in and change your password
2Set your clinic name, address and branding
3Name your Data Protection Officer and set the sign-in policy
4Add your doctors and staff, and check their roles
5Build your departments, services and prices
6Set clinic hours and each doctor’s availability
7Book your first appointment, adding the patient as you go
8Doctors: complete your own profile and e-signature
9Optional: go live on the public directory and take online bookings
10Optional: set up your medical certificate templates
11Optional: set up the Annual Physical Exam (APE) form

Add-on modules — only if enabled

12Check which modules are on, and request the ones you need
13Upload inventory items and pharmacy counter prices, then set up each enabled module
14Know where to get help

diversity_3 A guide for each role

Send these to your colleagues. Each one covers that role’s first sign-in, their day-to-day screens, and what they can and cannot do.

admin_panel_settingsAdministrator

Set the clinic up, add the people, decide who can do what.

 stethoscopeDoctor

Your profile and signature, then consultations, records and prescriptions.

 vaccinesNurse

Intake, vitals and support around each consultation.

 support_agentReceptionist

Register patients, book the day, handle online requests.

 point_of_saleCashier

Collect payments, print receipts, close the day clean.

 pillPharmacist

Stock, batches and expiry, dispensing, the counter.

 account_balanceAccountant

Prices, revenue, disbursements and the day-end figures.

 biotechLab Technician

Work the order queue, record results, flag critical values.

 radiologyRadiologic Technologist

Take the study, upload the images, keep the catalog straight.
Inside the app the same guides carry your clinic’s own logo and colours, under Help › Getting Started.

login 1. Sign in and change your password

Everything happens at your clinic’s own web address, for example yourclinic.careclinic.ph. The welcome email that brought you here contains that address.

First sign-in

  1. Open your clinic address and use the Sign in screen.
  2. Enter the email and the temporary password from your welcome email.
  3. Open My Profile from the account menu, then select Change Password. Some starter accounts are required to do this before anything else opens.
Extra protection: turn on two-step sign-in for yourself at My Profile › Two-step sign-in, and keep the backup codes somewhere safe.

storefront 2. Clinic name, address and branding Administrator

These details print on receipts, prescriptions, certificates and every PDF your clinic issues, so do them before anyone starts seeing patients.

What to fill in

  1. Settings › Appearance — clinic name, address, phone and email, plus your colours and layout.
  2. Upload your logo on the same page. It appears in the app and on the public directory.
  3. Upload a PDF letterhead under Settings › Appearance › Clinic Letterhead. It is printed at the top of every generated document.

shield 3. Data Protection Officer and sign-in policy Administrator

A clinic holding patient records must publish a Data Protection Officer (Data Privacy Act, RA 10173). Do this before you enter real patients.

Three settings

  • Settings › Privacy & Security — the name, email and phone of your Data Protection Officer. This is shown to patients.
  • Under Settings › Privacy & Security › Two-step sign-in, require two-step sign-in for chosen roles. Anyone in a covered role is asked to enrol at their next sign-in.
  • Settings › Record Access Log — who opened which patient record. Give this to your privacy officer; it is a separate permission from the other settings.
Lost phone? An administrator can clear a staff member’s second factor from that person’s account page, so nobody is locked out permanently.

groups 4. Doctors, staff and roles Administrator

Your clinic starts with eight ready-made roles — administrator, doctor, nurse, receptionist, cashier, pharmacist and so on. A role decides which menus a person sees.

Adding people

  1. Review the roles at Settings › Roles. Adjust one, or add your own, before you invite anybody.
  2. Add doctors with Staff › Doctors › Add Doctor, and everyone else with Staff › Staff › Add Staff. Each person is emailed a temporary password.
  3. Doctors who found you on the public directory and asked to join appear under Staff › Doctor Requests, or in the notice shown on the doctors page.
Note: doctors can view and update patients but cannot register new ones — that belongs to reception. Change it on the role if your clinic works differently.

medical_services 5. Departments, services and prices Administrator

A new clinic is seeded with exactly one department, Clinic, holding one service, Consultation. Everything a patient can be booked or billed for comes from this catalog, so build it out early.

Build the catalog

  1. Departments › Departments › New Department — create your real departments, then add the services under each one, with the time a visit takes.
  2. Assign doctors and staff to the departments they work in.
  3. Departments › Service Packages › New Package — optional bundles, such as an annual physical exam, sold as one item.
  4. Accounting › Price Display — choose which prices patients see when booking online.
Prices: if the Accounting module is on, the billed amounts live under Accounting › Service Pricing and Accounting › Package Pricing. See step 13.

schedule 6. Clinic hours and doctor availability Administrator

Booking slots come from two layers: the clinic is open, and a doctor is available. Both must be set or the calendar shows nothing.

Two layers

  1. Settings › Availability — the weekly opening hours, plus holidays and closed dates.
  2. Staff › Doctors › a doctor › Availability — that doctor’s own days and times. Doctors can also set this themselves; see step 8.
  3. Settings › Calendar Invitations — optional: email a calendar invitation with each confirmed appointment.

how_to_reg 7. Your first patient and first visit

A dry run end to end takes about five minutes and proves the setup works. Patients, appointments, medical records and prescriptions are available to every clinic from day one.

The round trip

  1. Clinical › Appointments › New Appointment. In the Patient box, type a test name and pick Add new patient, then fill in the name, birth date and sex. This registers the patient and books the visit in one form.
  2. Still on the form, choose a doctor, a service and a time, then save. Manual: Appointments
  3. Open the appointment and click Confirm, then Start (Start appears only after Confirm). Starting the visit opens its consultation sections.
  4. The doctor writes the consultation notes. Manual: Medical Records
  5. The doctor issues a prescription from the same visit. Manual: Prescriptions
  6. Delete the test patient afterwards, or keep it as a practice record for training.
A prescription needs notes first: the doctor records the diagnosis and treatment on the visit before the prescription form will open.

stethoscope 8. For doctors: your own profile Doctor

Every doctor does this once, personally, from Account menu › My Profile. Nobody else can do it for you.

Fill in, in this order

  1. Name and display name. The display name replaces your name everywhere it is printed, including on every PDF — use the exact form you want patients to read.
  2. Specialization and licence numbers — PRC licence, PTR, and S2 if you prescribe dangerous drugs. These print on your prescriptions.
  3. Photo — shown to patients when they book.
  4. E-signature — upload a signature image. Until you do, prescriptions, certificates and physical-exam forms print without a signature.
  5. Your availability — the days and times you consult.
  6. Your services — which of the clinic’s services you perform. Patients booking you online can only pick from these.
  7. Two-step sign-in under My Profile › Two-step sign-in, and a counter PIN with the Manage PIN button if your clinic runs a pharmacy counter.
On the go: the CareClinic doctor app for Android shows your day, your patients’ records and the documents waiting for your signature. Find it on Resources.

public 9. Public listing and online booking Administrator

Optional, and off until you switch it on. Two separate switches must both be on before a doctor appears in the public directory.

Both switches

  1. Settings › Public Visibility — list the clinic publicly.
  2. Each doctor ticks show me in the public directory on their own Account menu › My Profile.
  3. Test the patient-facing flow with the Book an Appointment button on your public clinic page. Requests arrive under Clinical › Booking Requests for the front desk to confirm.
Before you publish: finish steps 2, 5 and 6 first — a listing with no logo, no services and no opening hours cannot be booked.
Not ready to take bookings yet? The same Settings › Public Visibility page carries an Online Booking switch. Turn it off and your page still shows the clinic, its doctors, services and opening hours — but every Book button disappears and visitors read a short message instead. Write your own message, or leave it blank for the default. Bookings already in the system are unaffected.

workspace_premium 10. Medical certificate templates Administrator Optional

A medical certificate is the signed paper a patient asks for: fit to work, fit to travel, sick leave, and so on. A template is the wording you write once, so that each certificate afterwards takes a few clicks. You do not need this on day one — come back when the first patient asks for a certificate. It is included on every plan, Free too.

Write your first template

  1. Open Settings › Certificate Templates and select New Template. If you do not see it in the menu, your role does not include this permission — ask the clinic administrator.
  2. Give it a Template Name you will recognise, such as Fit to Work, and a short description of when to use it.
  3. Type the wording in Certificate Text. On the right is a list of ready-made variables — the patient’s name, today’s date, the doctor’s name and more. Click one to drop it into the text where your cursor is; each is filled in automatically when the certificate is issued. You never have to type them by hand.
  4. Want a blank the doctor fills in by hand each time, such as the number of rest days? Type a row of underscores, like ______. The longer the row, the wider the blank.
  5. Select Preview to see it with example values, then Create Template.
What you should see: your template appears in the list. Changing it later never alters certificates already issued.

Issue a certificate

  1. Open Certificates in the menu and select Issue Certificate.
  2. Search for the patient, pick your template, fill in any blanks, and issue it.
  3. Print it or download the PDF. Manual: Medical Certificates
Signature: the doctor’s e-signature from step 8 prints on the certificate. Without it the certificate prints unsigned.
Emailing it to the patient needs the Notifications module (step 12). Printing and PDF download do not.

clinical_notes 11. The Annual Physical Exam (APE) form Administrator Optional

An Annual Physical Exam is the yearly check-up many employers and schools require. CareClinic has a ready-made two-page APE form and a matching PDF, so you can start using it today with nothing to set up. Customise it only if an employer wants different questions. It is included on every plan, Free too.

Use it as it comes

  1. Book the patient with Clinical › Appointments › New Appointment and tick Annual Physical Exam (APE) on the form.
  2. Open the appointment. In the Annual Physical Exam card, select APE Intake to fill in the form: history, body systems, physical findings and the assessment.
  3. Once it is saved, Download APE PDF appears — that is the two-page printout.
  4. Prefer the patient to fill in their own history first? Select Send patient APE. The patient gets a secure link by email and completes their part, and your staff finish the exam.
Signature: the doctor’s e-signature from step 8 prints on the APE PDF, and unsigned without it.

Customise it with a template (optional)

Every clinic starts with one template named Standard APE. Make another when a company wants a shorter or longer form.

  1. Open Settings › APE Templates and select New Template. It starts as a copy of the Standard APE, so nothing is lost.
  2. Name it, for example after the employer. If the employer is on your Companies list, choose it under Applies to company and the template is picked automatically for that company’s patients.
  3. Untick any section or line the exam should not ask. You can also add up to 20 extra questions of your own under Extra fields.
  4. Select Save Template. When you send a patient APE, choose the template from the list next to the button.
Safe to experiment: a finished exam keeps the questions it was filled in with, so editing a template never changes a past exam.

Have old results on a spreadsheet?

Use Settings › Import APE Results to load them in bulk, and Settings › APE Results Export to take results out again. Manual: APE import

Emailing finished results to a patient needs the Notifications module (step 12). The form, the PDF and sending a patient their intake link do not.

extension 12. Which modules are switched on Administrator

CareClinic is a core clinic system plus optional modules. Not everything you see in the manual is switched on for your clinic.

On from day one

Patients, Medical Records, Prescriptions and Appointments — including departments, services, staff, the cashier screen and patient charges. Everything in steps 1–11 works with no extra module.

Off until requested

Billing, Accounting, Laboratory, Inventory, Pharmacy Counter, Reports, Notifications and Dental.

  1. See what is on at Settings › Modules. That page shows status only — it cannot switch a module on.
  2. Ask for a module at Subscription › Subscription › Add-ons, or contact the CareClinic team.
  3. Some modules are included in higher plans — compare them on Pricing and Modules.
If a module is off: its menu entry is hidden, and opening the address directly returns you to the dashboard with a message. Nothing is broken — it simply is not part of your subscription yet.

tune 13. Setting up each module Administrator

Skip any row your clinic does not have. Each one links to the part of the manual that explains the day-to-day work.

ModuleWhat it addsFirst thing to doManual
Billing Your CareClinic subscription, invoices and payments. Subscription › Subscription — check the plan and billing contact. Subscription
Accounting Prices, revenue reports and cash disbursements. Price the catalog under Accounting › Service Pricing and Accounting › Package Pricing. Billing & Cashier
Laboratory Test catalog, orders, results and critical-value alerts. The catalog starts empty. Add tests at Laboratory › Test Catalog, then mirror them as billable services from Departments › Departments. Laboratory
Inventory Medicine and supply stock, batches, expiry and dispensing. Open Pharmacy › Inventory and select Import to upload items, brands and opening batches from a spreadsheet. Pharmacy & Inventory
Pharmacy Counter Over-the-counter selling at a till. Needs Inventory as well. Add a Counter Prices sheet to the inventory upload, then enrol the till at Settings › Pharmacy Terminals. Pharmacy Counter
Reports Clinical analytics across your patient population. Open Clinical › Analytics once it is enabled — nothing to set up. Clinical Analytics
Notifications In-app alerts and mobile push for doctors. Each person tunes their own alerts; doctors sign in to the mobile app to receive push. —
Dental A tooth chart on each visit, with per-surface findings. Already on for dental practices. Open any appointment to chart. Dental

Extras that need no module

  • Medical certificates — see step 10.
  • Annual physical exams — see step 11.
  • Import an existing patient list from a spreadsheet with Clinical › Patients › Import from spreadsheet.
  • Extra patient fields of your own at Patient Fields.
  • Employers and HMOs — link patients to the company that covers them at the Companies control on a patient’s profile. Manual

help 14. Where to get help

  • User Manual — the full, searchable guide, task by task and role by role. It is also inside the app under Help › User Manual.
  • FAQ — short answers to common questions.
  • Resources — the doctor mobile app and other downloads.
  • Contact us — for anything the pages above do not cover, including switching on a module.
Keep this page: bookmark it, and send it to every new administrator or doctor who joins your clinic.