IT Support for Dental Practices in Broward County
A dental practice runs on two things that cannot go down: the schedule and the imaging. Both live on machines that were set up years ago by whoever installed the practice management software, and have been quietly ageing ever since.
What we usually find in a dental office
- The practice management server is a tower under the front desk or in a supply closet, running a version of Windows that stopped getting security updates some time ago because the imaging software vendor never certified the newer one.
- Every operatory workstation is logged in as the same shared account, because it is faster than having each hygienist sign in. Nobody can tell from the logs who did what.
- Backups are running to an external drive that sits on the same desk as the server. A fire, a flood or a ransomware infection takes both.
- The imaging vendor has remote access, permanently enabled, with a password that has not changed since installation.
What actually goes wrong
Ransomware stops the schedule, not just the computers
When a practice management database is encrypted, you cannot see who is coming in, what they are coming in for, or what you did last time. Most practices discover their recovery plan does not work on the morning they need it.
HIPAA expects technical safeguards you can evidence
The Security Rule asks for access control, audit logging, malware protection and encryption. Shared logins defeat the first two outright. If you are ever asked to demonstrate who accessed a record, a single shared account means you cannot.
Old imaging workstations are the soft entry point
An unpatched machine that cannot be upgraded still needs to be isolated, monitored and watched for behaviour rather than left to a signature-based antivirus that stopped being sufficient years ago.
How we handle it
- Named logins for every person, so the audit trail is real
- EDR on every workstation including the ones the imaging vendor will not let you upgrade
- Patching on everything that can take it, network isolation for everything that cannot
- Backups that are tested by restoring them, not by checking a green tick
- Vendor remote access put behind approval instead of left permanently open
- A written record of the technical safeguards in place, so the compliance question has an answer
Common questions
Does managed IT make my dental practice HIPAA compliant?
No single service makes a practice HIPAA compliant, and anyone claiming otherwise is selling something. Managed IT covers the technical safeguards — access control, audit logging, malware protection, encryption enforcement. The administrative and physical safeguards, your policies, workforce training and business associate agreements sit outside it. We will tell you plainly which parts we cover and which remain yours.
Our imaging software vendor says we cannot update Windows. What do we do?
This is extremely common and it is not a reason to leave the machine exposed. The answer is compensating controls: isolate the machine on its own network segment so it cannot reach the rest of the practice, put EDR on it so behaviour is watched even though patches are unavailable, and restrict what it is allowed to talk to. It is not as good as patching, and it is a great deal better than nothing.
How much does IT support for a dental practice cost?
Endpoint protection is $32 per device per month, which covers monitoring, patching, EDR and identity threat detection. A typical four-operatory practice runs six to ten devices. Project work — a server migration, a new operatory build-out — comes out of prepaid support hours starting at $115 per hour.
Can you work around our practice hours?
Yes. Patching and maintenance windows are scheduled outside clinical hours, because taking an operatory offline mid-morning is not an option. We are in Pembroke Pines, so on-site work anywhere in Broward County does not carry travel charges.
Start with the free assessment
We run an external security assessment on your domain and show you what we find before you spend anything.