HIPAA COMPLIANCE SERVICES
HIPAA compliance services for healthcare and dental practices
Real expertise, real assessments, and real support to help your practice meet and maintain HIPAA requirements.
THE STAKES
HIPAA compliance is not optional — and not something to guess at
For practices handling protected health information, HIPAA defines the floor of what you must do to protect patient data. Get it wrong and the consequences range from financial penalties to reputational damage that takes years to recover from.
FREE SECURITY ASSESSMENT
HIPAA is a specialty area — not an afterthought
Paco, our owner, has years of hands-on experience supporting healthcare clients using industry-leading tools. We know what the regulation requires and what it takes to operationalize it inside a small practice.
WHAT SETS US APART
- Owner-led HIPAA experience
- ActiFile — real dollar-value risk quantification
- BAA signed with every healthcare client
- Ongoing compliance — not a one-time project
- Deep experience in dental and urgent care
WHAT THE REGULATION REQUIRES
What HIPAA actually requires from your practice
Documented policies
Policies and procedures covering how PHI is handled.
Risk assessments
Where PHI lives, what threats it faces, what controls are in place.
Technical safeguards
Access controls, audit logging, encryption, and secure transmission.
Physical safeguards
Controls for where servers, workstations, and records are stored.
Administrative safeguards
Employee training, role-based access, and incident response.
Business associate agreements
Signed BAAs with every vendor who has access to PHI.
HOW WE HELP
Seven ways Run Smarter IT supports your HIPAA program
01
Risk assessments
Formal assessments identifying where PHI lives, what risks it faces, and what controls are in place. Documented, defensible, and useful.
02
ActiFile data risk assessment
Agent-based device scanning that identifies regulated data and assigns a real dollar value to your risk. Available free for prospective clients.
03
Technical safeguard implementation
Endpoint protection, email security, MFA, password management, network segmentation, encryption, and audit logging. The full technical stack required to support HIPAA.
04
Administrative safeguard support
Policies, procedures, training, and documentation. We help you build and maintain the administrative side of your compliance program.
05
Business associate agreements
We sign a BAA with every healthcare client and work with your other vendors to make sure their agreements are in order.
06
Incident response and breach support
If something goes wrong, we help you investigate, contain, document, and report under HIPAA’s strict 60-day notification requirements.
07
Ongoing compliance partnership
Regular reviews, updates, and adjustments as your practice changes. HIPAA compliance is not a one-time project — it is an ongoing program.
FREE HIPAA ASSESSMENT
Not confident in your HIPAA posture? Start here.
We offer a free HIPAA compliance assessment using ActiFile. It scans your environment, identifies where regulated data lives, and puts a clear dollar value on your current risk exposure.
The report is yours to keep — even if you do not become a client.
WHO WE SERVE
Healthcare and dental practices across Brevard County
We work with healthcare and dental practices of all sizes in Brevard County and Central Florida — dental offices, urgent care centers, outpatient clinics, medical practices, and specialty providers. We have particular depth in dental and urgent care.
THE COST OF NON-COMPLIANCE
What a HIPAA breach actually costs a small practice
HIPAA fines are tiered based on how negligent the covered entity was. At the lowest tier — where the organization did not know and could not reasonably have known — fines start at $100 per violation. At the highest tier — willful neglect not corrected — fines reach $50,000 per violation with an annual cap of $1.5 million per violation category. For a small practice, a breach involving a few hundred patient records can be catastrophic.
Beyond the fines, a breach triggers mandatory notification requirements. Affected patients must be notified within 60 days. If more than 500 patients in a state are affected, local media must be notified. The Department of Health and Human Services must be notified regardless of size. Every one of those notifications damages your reputation with the patients and families who trusted you with their health information.
Most HIPAA violations at small practices are not malicious. They are the result of poor configuration, missing controls, outdated systems, and a lack of formal policies — all of which are preventable with the right partner and the right process.
HIPAA IN BREVARD COUNTY
Supporting healthcare and dental practices across Central Florida
Healthcare is one of the most important industries in Brevard County. Across Melbourne, Viera, Palm Bay, Rockledge, Titusville, and Cocoa, there are hundreds of dental offices, medical practices, urgent care centers, specialty providers, and outpatient clinics — all of them covered entities under HIPAA, and all of them carrying real compliance obligations.
We work with practices of all sizes across this geography. We understand that a solo dental practitioner in Palm Bay and a multi-provider urgent care group in Melbourne have different compliance needs, different budgets, and different risk profiles. Our HIPAA program is not a one-size-fits-all package. It is built around your practice’s actual operations, your specific patient data footprint, and your regulatory obligations.
One of the most common things we hear from new healthcare clients is that their previous IT provider never mentioned HIPAA at all. That is a serious gap. Your IT environment is one of the most important components of your HIPAA compliance posture — and if your IT provider is not actively helping you maintain it, they are passively creating risk.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Common questions about HIPAA compliance for healthcare practices
Does my dental practice need a business associate agreement with my IT provider?
Yes — absolutely. If your IT provider has any access to systems that store, process, or transmit protected health information, they are a business associate under HIPAA and you are required to have a signed BAA in place. This is one of the most commonly missing compliance documents we find when assessing new healthcare and dental clients. Run Smarter IT signs a BAA with every healthcare and dental practice we work with. If your current IT provider has not offered one, that is a significant red flag.
What is a HIPAA risk assessment and how often does my practice need one?
A HIPAA risk assessment is a formal analysis of potential risks to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic PHI in your practice. It is required by the HIPAA Security Rule — not optional, and not a one-time exercise. Most practices should conduct a full risk assessment at least annually and after any significant change to their environment. We use ActiFile, which gives you a real dollar-value picture of the regulated data sitting on your devices and systems.
What happens if my practice has a data breach?
A breach triggers required actions under HIPAA. Affected patients must be notified within 60 days. If more than 500 patients in a state are affected, local media outlets and HHS must be notified simultaneously. You also face potential civil monetary penalties and corrective action plans. Having a documented incident response plan before a breach happens is one of the most important things a practice can do. We help our healthcare clients build and maintain that plan as part of their ongoing compliance program.
Is storing patient records in the cloud HIPAA compliant?
It can be — with the right cloud provider, the right configuration, and a signed BAA with the cloud provider. Microsoft 365 with a BAA from Microsoft can be used for PHI when configured correctly. The platform being HIPAA-capable does not mean your configuration is compliant. Default settings in Microsoft 365 and other platforms often leave significant gaps. We review and configure cloud environments specifically to meet HIPAA technical safeguard requirements.
What is the difference between HIPAA covered entities and business associates?
A covered entity is any healthcare provider, health plan, or healthcare clearinghouse that transmits health information electronically — your dental or medical practice. A business associate is any vendor that creates, receives, maintains, or transmits PHI on your behalf — your IT provider, billing company, cloud backup vendor. Both have HIPAA obligations, and the relationship must be formalized with a signed BAA. The 2013 Omnibus Rule made business associates directly liable for HIPAA compliance, not just contractually obligated through you.
Patient data protection is too important to leave to chance
Book a free 30-minute consultation or request a free HIPAA compliance assessment. We will give you an honest, useful read on where you stand and what to do next.