In this article:
A receptionist accidentally deletes a client’s entire payment history. A veterinary technician updates the wrong patient’s medical record. Two staff members edit the same patient file simultaneously, and critical treatment notes get overwritten. You’re asked to demonstrate compliance with controlled substance regulations, and you can’t prove which veterinarian prescribed what.
Without individual logins, these moments turn into mysteries that erode trust—with your team, your clients, and your data.
But accountability isn’t the only security challenge clinics face when moving from legacy systems to cloud-based practice management software.
That flexibility of cloud-software can also creates new vulnerabilities that your old server-locked-in-the-back-office system never had to worry about if not managed correctly:
The good news? You don’t need to become an IT security expert to protect your clinic.
Modern practice management systems should handle security by default—protecting your data without adding complexity to your team’s daily workflow. You went into this profession to take care of animals, not to manage passwords and firewall rules. The right software does the heavy lifting so you can focus on what actually matters.
Here’s what that looks like in practice.
Let’s start with what you’re actually protecting against.
Say your clinic uses one “admin” account that five people know the password to. One person writes it on a sticky note. Another saves it in their personal email. Someone types it into their phone while waiting at a coffee shop on unsecured WiFi. A team member clicks a phishing link that looks like it came from a drug distributor. Any one of those moments could expose your entire system.
If that single account gets compromised—whether through a phishing email, a stolen device, or just someone overhearing the password—whoever has it now has full access to everything. They can:
The damage spreads instantly because that one compromised account opens every door. There’s no containment. There’s no way to see what they accessed or what they changed until you notice something’s wrong—which could be days, weeks, or months later.
Worse, because everyone uses the same login, you can’t simply lock that person out. You have to change the password and redistribute it to everyone who needs access, creating the exact same security vulnerability all over again.
The whole time you’re scrambling to do this, your clinic operations are disrupted, your team can’t work, and the clock is ticking on whatever damage is being done.
Now compare that to individual accounts with appropriate permission levels:
If a receptionist’s account is compromised, the attacker might only have access to scheduling and creating invoices—not medical records or financial reports. You can immediately disable that single account without disrupting anyone else’s work. Your veterinarians keep seeing patients. And because each person’s actions are tied to their own login, you can review exactly what was accessed or changed before you caught the problem. You can answer the critical questions: What did they see? What did they do? Who needs to be notified?
This isn’t hypothetical. It’s the difference between containing a security incident and having it spread through your entire system.
The security threats you can see—phishing emails, stolen passwords, compromised accounts—are only part of the story.
There’s another category of risk that’s harder to spot: who legitimately has access to your data, and what they’re doing with it.
Some veterinary practice management systems are owned by larger corporations—companies that also sell pharmaceuticals, lab services, diagnostic equipment, or other products directly to veterinary practices.
When the company running your practice management software is the same company (or owned by the same parent company) trying to sell you products, ask yourself: what are they doing with your data?
They can see:
That information is valuable. It tells them exactly how to sell to you, what to price their products at, and where you might be vulnerable to a competitor’s pitch. Some corporate-owned systems have been known to use clinic data for their own business intelligence and marketing purposes—or worse, to market competing services directly to your clients.
You built your practice. Your client relationships are yours. Your prescribing patterns and business decisions shouldn’t be feeding someone else’s sales strategy.
When you’re switching from a legacy system to a new PIMS, someone has to move your data. That means someone—whether it’s the vendor’s team or an outside contractor—gets access to years of patient records, client contact information, financial data, and controlled substance logs.
Some vendors outsource this work to third-party contractors to save money or because they don’t have the in-house expertise. Those contractors get temporary access to everything in your system. And you have very little visibility into:
This is your clients’ personal information, your patients’ medical histories, and your business’s financial records. The moment a third party touches it, you’ve expanded your risk surface.
When evaluating practice management software, most clinic owners focus on features, pricing, and ease of use. Those things matter.
But you should also be asking:
These aren’t theoretical concerns. There are documented cases of corporate-owned PIMS vendors using clinic data to inform their own product sales strategies, and of third-party migration contractors mishandling sensitive veterinary practice information.
If you’re moving from legacy server-based software to cloud-based practice management, you’re probably carrying over some habits that made sense in the old world but create real problems today.
Many clinics coming from systems like AVImark, Cornerstone, or DVMax are used to having one or two shared logins—maybe an “admin” account that multiple people use, or a “doctor” login that all the veterinarians share. On a server locked in your back office, accessible only from computers physically inside your building, that setup felt secure enough.
However, today’s cloud-based software works differently. Your team can access it from anywhere, on any device. The flexibility and convenience is exactly why you switched—but it also means the old habits don’t cut it anymore.
When everyone shares the same login credentials, you lose something critical: accountability. You can’t see who did what, when they did it, or from where. When a client disputes a charge, when a record gets changed, or when something goes wrong, you’re left guessing. That’s if you even notice the problem in the first place.
When each team member has their own login, every action in your system has a name attached to it. This single change solves most of the problems we just described—and it costs you nothing.
You can see exactly who updated a patient record, processed a refund, changed a medication dosage, or modified an invoice. This isn’t about policing your team—it’s about having clarity when questions arise.
Did a client dispute a charge? You can pull up exactly who processed it and when to get clarification. Did someone accidentally delete something? You know who to ask about it. Did a medication dosage change and you need to understand why? There’s a clear trail.
This kind of transparency actually protects your team members too. When someone claims a staff member made an error, you have facts instead of assumptions.
When a staff member leaves your practice, you simply disable their account. That’s it. They’re locked out immediately, and everyone else continues working normally.
With shared logins, you’d need to change the password and redistribute it to everyone else before they can continue with their work—more hassle, more coordination, and more opportunities for the new password to get written down somewhere it shouldn’t be.
You can have unlimited support and administration accounts in Digitail at no additional cost. There’s literally no financial reason not to give each team member their own access.
You didn’t go to veterinary school to become an IT security expert. You shouldn’t have to be one to protect your clinic.
That’s why Digitail builds security features that work by default—protecting your data without adding complexity to your team’s daily workflow. We do the heavy lifting so you can focus on what you actually went into this profession to do: take care of animals.
And here’s something else you shouldn’t have to worry about: who else has access to your data. Digitail is an independent company—we’re not owned by a larger corporation with its own business interests. We handle all data migration in-house with our own team, never third parties. We don’t sell your data, we don’t market to your clients, and we don’t share your clinic information with parent companies or partners. Your data is yours, period.
Here’s what’s built into the platform to protect your clinic:
Think of 2FA as a deadbolt on your front door. Even if someone gets your password, they can’t get in without the second verification.
In Digitail, 2FA is enabled by default. When someone tries to log in from a new IP address, they need both their password and a verification code sent to their email. The code is only valid for five minutes, so even if someone intercepts it, there’s a very small window for misuse.
The system doesn’t ask for this code every single time—only when logging in from a location it doesn’t recognize. This balances security with convenience for your team’s daily workflow.
You can manage this setting from your clinic preferences, though we strongly recommend keeping it enabled. If you disable 2FA, it applies to your entire clinic and all staff members—not just individual accounts.
If you want to restrict platform access to specific IP addresses—meaning your team can only log in from inside the clinic—IP whitelisting does exactly that.
This is ideal if you don’t want staff accessing the system from home or on personal devices not connected to the clinic’s network. Once you add your clinic’s IP addresses to the whitelist, anyone trying to log in from outside those locations simply can’t get in.
There’s also a smart exception built in: you can disable the IP whitelist for specific users who legitimately need remote access. For example, if your veterinarians need to check records from home or review cases while on call, you can give them that flexibility while keeping tighter restrictions on other roles.
When IP whitelisting is active, team members logging in from approved locations can use a fast PIN instead of typing their full password each time. The PIN is auto-generated and visible in each user’s profile—making daily logins quicker without sacrificing security.
One important note: make sure you know whether your clinic has a static or dynamic IP address before enabling this feature. Static IPs stay the same over time and work perfectly for whitelisting. Dynamic IPs change regularly and could lock you out if not updated. Check with your internet provider if you’re not sure which you have.
The system requires users to change their passwords every 12 months and meet minimum requirements: at least 8 characters, at least 1 number, and at least 1 special character.
You’ll get a reminder two weeks before your password expires. If you don’t update it before the deadline, you’ll be prompted to set a new password on your next login—and you won’t be able to navigate anywhere else until you do.
This might feel like a hassle, but it’s a simple way to prevent the slow accumulation of security debt that happens when passwords never change.
When evaluating any veterinary practice management software—these are the questions you should be asking:
These aren’t “nice-to-have” features—they’re essential for protecting client data, maintaining accountability, and running a trustworthy practice.
If you’re used to shared logins from your legacy system, the switch to individual accounts might feel like extra work upfront. You’ll need to create user profiles, set permission levels, and get your team comfortable with their own logins.
But that initial effort pays off immediately. You setup your team’s accounts once, and then you’re done. The system handles the rest. You gain visibility into your system that you’ve never had before. You can answer questions that were previously impossible to answer. And you can rest easier knowing that your clinic’s data—and your clients’ trust—is protected by something stronger than a password on a sticky note.
Data security isn’t just about protecting against external threats. It’s about having the right systems in place so your team can work confidently, your clients’ information stays protected, and you have answers when you need them.
Individual logins are the foundation. Everything else builds from there.
Check out our help article on managing login and security settings, or schedule a demo to see it in action.
