Three Major Dental DSOs Got Hit By Ransomware This Summer. Yours Isn't Immune.

Three Major Dental DSOs Got Hit By Ransomware This Summer. Yours Isn't Immune.

Midwest Dental, Brite Smile, and one regional DSO had ransomware incidents in July and August. Patient records leaked. Insurance claims delayed. One paid $2.1 million to restore systems. These aren't mom-and-pop practices.

If you're on a DSO platform, the risk isn't just their security—it's their backup and recovery speed. When a DSO goes down, all their practices go down. No scheduling, no imaging, no claims submission.

Action: Demand your DSO's RTO (recovery time objective) and RPO (recovery point objective) in writing. If they can't restore within 4-8 hours, that's unacceptable. Keep daily backups of patient charts offline. Test your disaster recovery plan. If a ransomware attack shuts you down, you don't get paid while you're waiting for IT to fix it.