Most IT problems at new dental practices are not random. They follow a pattern. The same mistakes show up in practice after practice, at different stages of setup, and they cost the same things every time.
Delayed openings, opening day failures, compliance gaps, and unexpected costs. Here is the complete list of what goes wrong and what to do instead.
The Cost of Getting It Wrong$3,000 to $8,000average cost of an opening day IT failure in lost production plus emergency IT labor
Every item on this list is a problem that has been discovered on opening day by a practice that did not catch it during preparation. None of them are complicated to prevent. All of them are expensive to fix under pressure.
Want to avoid the most common IT mistakes before your practice opens? Find out in 15 minutes if we are the right fit.
Flag each mistake that applies to your practice’s current situation. Each flagged item is a risk to address before opening day.
0Flag each mistake belowItems flagged represent active risks to your opening
Multiple high-risk gaps are present. These need to be resolved before your first patient.
The flagged mistakes are the most common causes of opening day failures and compliance exposure at new practices. The earlier they are addressed, the lower the cost to fix them. Mistakes 1, 3, and 4 in particular have hard deadlines driven by construction timelines.
Each flagged item is a specific gap that has caused opening day problems at other practices. The fix for each is straightforward when there is time. Address them now rather than on opening week.
One item flagged. Address it and your practice is well-prepared for opening.
A single flagged item is a manageable gap. Resolve it specifically and confirm the fix is documented before your first patient appointment.
No active risk flags. Your practice is positioned for a smooth opening.
None of the seven common mistakes apply to your current situation. Confirm that all documentation — Security Risk Assessment, signed BAAs, and training records — is complete and on file before your first patient appointment.
Frequently Asked Questions
Starting too late. A practice that begins IT planning two months before opening instead of six months before will spend more money on rushed labor, retrofitted cabling, and emergency opening-day support than a practice that planned correctly would have spent on a complete buildout. The cost of starting late is almost always higher than the cost of doing it right from the beginning.
No. Personal devices used for patient data create HIPAA compliance problems, are not configured to the security standards required for a clinical environment, and are not covered by your managed IT provider's support agreement. Every workstation used to access patient data must be a dedicated, practice-owned device configured to your IT provider's security standard.
Have you done a dental practice buildout before? Can you install and configure my specific practice management and imaging software? What HIPAA documentation will you produce as part of the setup? How will you verify the backup before opening day? What is your response time if something goes wrong on opening day?
Ask them to describe the most common support issues they see with your specific practice management platform. Ask how they handle imaging bridge configuration. Ask what their HIPAA documentation process looks like. A dental-specific provider answers these questions without hesitation. A general provider either cannot answer them or describes a process that does not match dental practice reality.
Opening a new dental practice and want to make sure you are not setting up the same IT problems every other startup practice runs into?
Ekim IT Solutions works exclusively with dental practices. We serve New England and New York with on-site support and startup practices nationwide with remote support. We have seen every common startup IT mistake and we get involved early enough in your build-out to make sure none of them happen to your practice.
The mistakes on that list are avoidable. But only if your IT provider is involved before they happen, not after.
Ezra Angelo
