What actually breaks
Practice management software that can’t reach its database
Dentrix, Tracker, ABELDent, Open Dental, they all depend on a server or a host workstation being reachable. When it isn’t, the whole office stops at once rather than one person at a time.
Imaging that saves somewhere nobody is backing up
Sensors and intraoral cameras often write to the machine they’re plugged into. If that workstation isn’t in the backup set, the images aren’t either, and nobody finds out until a drive dies.
Operatory machines that can’t leave the room
The hardware is physically tied to the chair. That’s the case where remote support genuinely can’t help and somebody has to come out.
Staff turnover nobody closed out
Accounts for people who left two years ago, still enabled, often still able to reach patient records.
REMOTE FIRST, ON-SITE WHEN IT MATTERS
Why we don’t drive out for everything
Most computer problems get fixed remotely and we’d rather do that, it’s $85/hr and nobody waits for a drive across the city. Operatories are the exception. The imaging hardware is tied to the chair, and patient data shouldn’t be leaving on a technician’s USB stick.
Pick-up and drop-off anywhere in the Edmonton area is $50 flat if a machine simply needs to come to the bench.
Patient records and the law
Alberta’s Health Information Act covers patient records held by a custodian, and the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) covers the rest of the personal information in the practice. Both are provincial. The federal PIPEDA is the one people reach for by habit, and it is generally not the statute that governs an Alberta practice. We don’t sell a compliance certification, and you should be wary of any IT company that does. What we do is the practical part: encrypted backups that get restored and dated, access that ends when employment ends, patched systems, and a written record of where the data actually lives. If your college or your insurer asks what your IT arrangement is, you should be able to answer without phoning anyone.
WHAT IT COSTS
Three tiers, and what each leaves out
Managed IT is quoted per user, per month. The three tiers differ by what they include rather than by a rate card, because servers, sites, and the compliance you carry all move the number.
A cheaper quote will not get you through a cyber insurance application. It has no backup and no threat detection, the two controls carriers scrutinise hardest. Standard is where most practices belong. The full breakdown is on the managed IT page, and the insurance side is on what cyber insurance requires.
Projects (migrations, new servers, office moves) are quoted separately at every tier. Nobody in this industry includes them.
Common questions
Do you work with our practice management vendor?
Yes. We don’t replace them. We make sure the environment their software runs in is healthy, and we handle the parts they hand back to you: the server, the backups, the workstations, the network.
What happens if the server fails completely?
On Standard or Complete, that’s a restore rather than a disaster, because backups are verified rather than assumed. A quote without verified backup is the common shape of a cheap one, which is exactly why we mark what is missing rather than only what is included.
Can you work outside our opening hours?
Managed clients are covered 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday, and we come out after hours at an emergency rate when something genuinely cannot wait. We start when your day starts, not when the shop counter opens , the 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. hours you will see elsewhere on this site are for walk-in repair, which is a different thing. Round-the-clock cover is part of Complete, and scheduled work that would interrupt a clinic day gets done outside it either way.
How many workstations before this makes sense?
Tell us the number and we’ll tell you honestly. For a very small practice, remote support at $85/hr may genuinely be the cheaper arrangement, and we’ll say so.
Tell us how many people, and what keeps going wrong.
Quotes are free. If the honest answer is that you don’t need a managed contract yet, that’s the answer you’ll get.