An independent cybersecurity review across many of Illinois’s largest dental groups reveals a wide range of results. Practices handle protected health information (PHI) every day, yet many show significant gaps in email authentication and transport security.
Using data from audit.emailmenow.com, we evaluated each practice’s domain across SPF, DKIM, DMARC, transport security (MTA-STS/TLS), and website security headers.
Cybersecurity Scores of Major Illinois Dental Groups
Overall compliance scores from audit.emailmenow.com. Re-run any domain at the link to verify.
| Rank | Practice / Group | Domain | Overall Score | Performance Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grand Dental Group | granddentalgroup.com | 54% | Average |
| 1 | Family Dental Care | familydentalcare.com | 54% | Average |
| 3 | Heartland Dental | heartlanddental.com | 48% | Below Average |
| 4 | North Shore Dental | northshoredentists.com | 38% | Weakest |
| 4 | Art of Modern Dentistry | artofmoderndentistry.com | 38% | Weakest |
| 6 | Dental Dreams | dentaldreams.com | 34% | Weakest |
| 7 | Pure Dental | puredentalchicago.com | 30% | Weakest |
What the Results Reveal
- No Illinois dental group cleared 55% — Grand Dental Group and Family Dental Care tie at the top (54%), and the field falls to 30%.
- Chicago-area practices (Pure Dental 30%, Dental Dreams 34%) are the most exposed, despite the protected health information they handle.
- Weak authentication makes phishing of patient billing and insurance communications far easier and undermines the HIPAA Security Rule’s safeguard requirements.
Why This Matters for Dental Groups
The HIPAA Security Rule requires every practice to perform and document a security risk analysis and safeguard ePHI in transit. Email and web exposures are among the most common findings in OCR investigations.
Check any practice’s posture at audit.emailmenow.com/?industry=healthcare-practices.
Recommendations
- Enforce DMARC (
p=reject), strict SPF (-all), and DKIM signing. - Add MTA-STS and website security headers.
- Complete and document a HIPAA security risk analysis, and oversee Business Associate vendors that touch PHI.
Protect your practice and your patients. Run a free Instant Cybersecurity Audit at audit.emailmenow.com/?industry=healthcare-practices.
Contact EmailMeNow IT Consulting for help with HIPAA documentation and email security hardening.
Source & methodology: Overall compliance scores from the free scan at audit.emailmenow.com — each domain checked for email authentication (SPF, DKIM, DMARC), transport security (MTA-STS/TLS), website security headers, and network security. Re-run any domain at the link to verify.