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10 Questions Every Physician Should Ask Before Choosing an EMR for Their New Clinic
Opening a clinic is one of the biggest decisions of a physician's career — and one of the most consequential parts of that decision happens before you ever see a patient: choosing your Electronic Medical Record system.
Your EMR isn't just a place to store charts. It's the backbone of how you'll practice medicine every single day — how you document, bill, communicate with patients, and stay compliant. Get it right, and it disappears into the background of your workflow. Get it wrong, and you'll spend years fighting software that was never built with your day-to-day reality in mind.
Before you sign a contract, here are ten questions every physician opening a new clinic should ask.
1. Was this EMR built by clinicians?
Most legacy EMRs were designed by engineers and product managers who have never run a clinic. That shows up in small but constant frictions — extra clicks to write a prescription, clunky templates, workflows that don't match how a physician actually thinks. Ask who built the product, and whether frontline doctors were involved in designing it, not just consulted after the fact.
2. How long will implementation actually take?
"A few months" can quietly turn into a year once you're mid-setup. Ask for a specific, guaranteed timeline, not a range. Some modern platforms can get a new clinic fully migrated and live within 8 weeks, with some solo practices going live the same day they set up their templates. If a vendor can't commit to a number, that's information too.
3. Who handles data migration, and what does it cost?
If you're switching from another system — or from paper — your existing patient records need to move cleanly and completely. Ask exactly what's included: Is migration handled for you, start to finish? Is it a flat cost or billed by the hour? Missing or corrupted patient histories are one of the most common and costly mistakes in a clinic transition.
4. Is it actually compliant with provincial privacy law?
In Ontario, that means PHIPA. Every EMR vendor will say they're compliant, but ask specifically how patient data is stored, who can access it, and what happens in a breach. Look for concrete certifications (SOC2, for example) rather than marketing language alone.
In British Columbia, the equivalent law is PIPA (BC's Personal Information Protection Act), which governs how private clinics collect, use, and disclose patient information. If you're opening a clinic in a hospital-affiliated or health authority setting rather than fully private practice, FIPPA — BC's public-sector privacy law — may apply instead, so it's worth confirming which one governs your specific practice model. As with PHIPA in Ontario, ask your EMR vendor the same concrete questions: where is data physically stored, who has access, what's the breach protocol, and what certifications (SOC2 or equivalent) back up those claims — not just a line on a compliance page.
5. Can it grow with you — from one physician to a multi-provider clinic?
Many new clinics start solo or with two physicians and scale into group practices within a few years. Ask whether the EMR is built to handle multi-provider scheduling, role-based permissions, and cross-location records from day one, or whether that's a "future roadmap" feature you'll eventually outgrow the system waiting for.
6. Does it support virtual care natively?
Patients now expect the option of a virtual visit. Ask whether video consultations are built directly into the EMR, or whether you'll need to bolt on a separate tool, log in twice, and manually reconcile notes between two systems.
7. What does clinical decision support actually look like inside the workflow?
Some newer EMRs now surface evidence-based clinical guidance directly at the point of care, so you're not tabbing out to search for a reference while a patient is in the room. Ask for a live demo of this specifically, not a slide describing it.
8. What does support look like after you've signed?
Ask what happens when something breaks on a Tuesday afternoon with a full waiting room. Is there a real support team, or a ticket queue? How fast is the average response time? Talk to existing customers directly if you can. Modern EMRs like Arya average a response time from a real support team of under 3 minutes.
9. How does billing integration actually work?
For most physicians, this is where real time gets lost or found. Ask how the EMR handles OHIP billing. Does it flag common billing errors before submission? Does it allow for automatic billing with commonly used billing codes, or does it leave that entirely up to you and your staff?
10. What do other physicians who opened a clinic with this EMR actually say?
Marketing pages tell you what a company wants you to believe. Ask for a reference — ideally a physician who opened a clinic in the last 12–18 months, so their experience reflects the current product, not an outdated version.
The bottom line
The EMR you choose when you open your clinic will likely be the one you're still using five years from now — migrating to a live clinic later is disruptive and expensive. It's worth spending real time on this decision before opening day, not after.
Arya was built by physicians who lived through the frustrations of legacy EMRs firsthand, with typical clinic go-lives in under 8 weeks, full-service data migration, PHIPA and SOC2 compliance out of the box, and evidence-based clinical guidance built directly into the workflow. If you're planning to open a clinic in Ontario or BC, book a free demo and see how it holds up against these ten questions.