How to choose a dental IT support company

Why your choice of dental IT provider matters

Choosing a dental IT support company is a bigger decision than it looks. Whoever you pick will look after the computers, server and software that hold your patient records, your schedule and your billing. When they do good work, you barely notice them. When something goes wrong, the front desk stops and patients wait.

This checklist is meant to be fair. Plenty of IT companies do good work, and the right fit depends on your office. Use the points below to compare any dental IT provider, including us. At the end, we show how My Dental IT measures up and where the honest answer is simply “ask us.”

Experience with dental offices and dental software

A dental office is not a typical small business network. Your team relies on practice management and billing software that has to be available all day, at the front desk and in every operatory. Updates to that software need planning, and a slow server shows up as a slow schedule.

Look for a provider who has worked in dental offices before and knows how dental software is installed, updated and backed up. General IT skills matter too; what you want on top is someone who understands a clinic day. Ask:

• Which practice management and billing software have you installed and maintained?
• Who handles software updates, and how are they scheduled around patient hours?
• Will you work with our software vendor’s support team when a problem sits between their software and our computers?

A signed HIPAA business associate agreement

An IT company that can reach the computers and server holding your patient information will usually be a business associate under HIPAA (45 CFR 160.103). The Privacy Rule lets you share protected health information with a business associate only under a written agreement (45 CFR 164.502(e) and 164.504(e)), and the Security Rule sets the same expectation for electronic patient information (45 CFR 164.308(b) and 164.314(a)).

A provider who works with dental offices should be ready to sign a business associate agreement (BAA). Among other things, the agreement should commit them to:

• Use appropriate safeguards for electronic patient information, as the Security Rule requires.
• Report breaches and security incidents to your practice.
• Bind any subcontractors who handle your data to the same restrictions.
• Return or destroy patient information when the relationship ends, where that is feasible.

A signed BAA does not make your practice compliant on its own. You still have your own Security Rule duties, such as a risk analysis (45 CFR 164.308(a)(1)(ii)(A)). Our HIPAA Security Rule IT checklist for dental offices walks through them. This guide is general information, not legal advice.

How they handle backups and recovery

Backups are the safety net under everything else on this list. A failed hard drive, a ransomware attack or a power surge can each take your server down. What matters then is whether the provider can bring your data back, and how long that takes.

A good backup plan keeps more than one copy of your data, keeps at least one copy away from the office, and is proven with real test restores. Ask a prospective provider:

• What gets backed up, beyond the practice management database?
• How often do backups run, and how far back can you restore?
• Where are the copies kept, and could ransomware on the office network reach them?
• When was a restore last tested, and can we see the result?
• How is the server protected from power failures and surges?

For the details, read our guides to dental office data backup and power outage and surge protection.

Their approach to security

No single product makes an office safe. Security is a set of habits, kept up over time. Look for a provider who explains in plain English how they protect your network and computers without making daily work harder for your team. Signs of a thoughtful approach:

• Separate staff and guest Wi-Fi, so patient devices never share a network with your server.
• Individual logins for every team member, with access matched to each role.
• Malware and virus protection on every computer, kept up to date.
• Planned updates for computers, servers and network equipment.
• Multi-factor authentication for email and remote access where it is available.
• A clear process for staff who leave, so their access ends the same day.

Our guide to ransomware protection for dental offices covers these habits in more depth.

How they communicate changes, maintenance and updates

A change to your network or software can disrupt a clinic day if it lands without warning. Ask how a provider tells you about planned maintenance, updates and changes before they happen, and how they explain what changed afterward.

Good communication means you know what is being done and when, the explanation makes sense without an IT background, and there is a record you can look back on.

How you get help when something breaks

When the front desk computer freezes on a full morning, your team needs to know exactly who to contact and how. Find out how you can reach the provider (phone, email, remote support) and what happens after you do.

Remote support lets a technician see the problem on your screen and often fix it then and there. Ask:

• Who answers when you call or email, and do they know your office?
• What are your support hours, and what happens outside them?
• What response times do you commit to, and are they in the contract?
• How is a remote support session started, and does someone in our office approve each one?

Monitoring that catches problems early

Many server problems give warning signs before they cause downtime: a disk filling up, a backup that did not finish, a drive starting to fail. Monitoring software watches for those signs, so someone can act before the schedule goes down.

Ask what the provider monitors, who receives the alerts, and what happens when one comes in. Monitoring is only useful when a person acts on it.

Documentation of your systems

Your provider should keep an up-to-date record of your office’s technology: every computer and device, the server, your software and its licenses, how the network is set up, and the vendor contacts for each system.

That record should belong to your practice. If you ever change providers, the next one should be able to pick up where the last one left off. Ask who holds the administrator passwords, and how you would get a full copy of your documentation.

Questions to ask a dental IT company in your first conversation

Bring this list to your first call with any provider. Their answers, and how clearly they give them, will tell you a lot.

• Dental experience: have you supported dental offices before, and which practice software do you know?
• HIPAA: will you sign a business associate agreement with our practice?
• Backups: what do you back up, where are the copies kept, and how do you test restores?
• Security: how do you secure our network without slowing the team?
• Communication: how will you tell us about changes, maintenance and updates?
• Support: how do we reach you, and how do remote support sessions work?
• Monitoring: what do you monitor, and who acts on an alert?
• Documentation: what records will you keep, and do we get a copy?
• Response times: how quickly will you respond, and during which hours?
• Pricing: what does it cost, what is included, and what is billed separately?
• Leaving: if we change providers, how do we get our data, passwords and documentation?