--- title: "Frequently Asked Questions | Vulpine Solutions" description: "Straight answers on managed IT pricing, HIPAA and BAA coverage, response times, and service area for Tampa Bay medical practices and professional firms." source: https://vulpinemsp.com/faq/ organization: "Vulpine Solutions, LLC" retrieved: 2026-08-20 --- # Questions before you call Pricing, HIPAA coverage, response times, and service area — answered here so you do not have to ask for them. [Pricing](#pricing) — [HIPAA](#hipaa) — [Support](#support) — [Getting started](#getting-started) ## What it costs Published rates, site minimums, and what the flat monthly bill actually covers. ### How much does managed IT cost with Vulpine Solutions? Vulpine Solutions charges $125 per user per month for SMB Essential, $185 per user per month for SMB Complete, and $215 per user per month for MedFortress™, the package for HIPAA-regulated medical and dental practices. Servers are a flat $275 per month on any package. Every rate we charge is published on the pricing page, including one-time project work and hourly rates. You do not have to sit through a sales call to find out what we cost. ### Is there a monthly minimum? Yes. Each package has a site minimum: $900 per month for SMB Essential, $1,300 per month for SMB Complete, and $1,500 per month for MedFortress™. You are billed the greater of the per-user calculation or the site minimum. In practice the minimum only applies to very small offices. A ten-person firm on SMB Complete is already above it. ### Do you charge per ticket, per incident, or per hour for support? No. Support is included in the flat monthly rate. Remote support is unlimited on every package, and on-site support is unlimited on SMB Complete and MedFortress™ during business hours. SMB Essential includes up to four hours of on-site support per site per month, after which on-site time is billed hourly. One-time project work — an office move, a server replacement, a mailbox migration — sits outside ongoing management and is quoted up front from the published à la carte rates. ### Why does MedFortress™ cost more than SMB Complete? MedFortress™ costs $215 per user per month against $185 for SMB Complete because of the compliance work, not the technology. Both packages run the identical platform: the same monitoring, the same security stack, the same response targets. The difference is a signed Business Associate Agreement, healthcare-specific access controls, audit logging that is retained and reviewable, and documented policies you can produce when an auditor or a cyber insurance carrier asks. The price difference is the difference in evidence you can produce. ### What is the IT assessment, and what does it cost? We complete an in-depth assessment of your IT systems. We review your computers, network, email, backups, and security posture. You get a written report with a prioritized list of what to fix first. You get the findings whether you hire us or not. It’s a flat $1,950, credited in full toward onboarding if you sign within 30 days. ## HIPAA and healthcare What MedFortress™ covers, what stays yours, and what no IT provider can promise. ### Do you sign a Business Associate Agreement? Yes. A signed Business Associate Agreement is included with every MedFortress™ engagement at no additional cost. HIPAA requires a BAA from any vendor that creates, receives, maintains, or transmits protected health information on a covered entity’s behalf. An IT provider serving a medical practice who will not sign one is a liability, not a vendor. ### Can an IT provider make my practice HIPAA compliant? No IT provider can make a practice HIPAA compliant, and you should be skeptical of any that says otherwise. HIPAA covers administrative, physical, and technical safeguards, and only some of those belong to your IT vendor. What we own is the technical safeguard set and the documentation that shows it is working. Your policies, workforce training records, and physical security stay yours. MedFortress™ is Vulpine Solutions’ own service package, not a government or industry certification — no such certification exists for IT providers. ### What is the difference between MedFortress™ and SMB Complete? MedFortress™ is SMB Complete plus the HIPAA compliance layer. The underlying platform is identical — same monitoring, patching, endpoint detection, backup, and response targets. MedFortress™ adds the signed BAA, healthcare-specific access controls, longer log and backup retention, documented restore testing, and audit-ready compliance documentation. If your business does not handle protected health information, SMB Complete is the right package. ### Do you support Google Workspace for practices that handle ePHI? No. MedFortress™ standardizes on Microsoft 365, and Vulpine Solutions does not support Google Workspace for practices handling electronic protected health information. Outside healthcare this is not a constraint: SMB Complete includes Microsoft 365 Business Premium or Google Workspace Business Plus, your choice, at the same price. ### Do you work with our existing EHR or practice management software? Yes. We support the environment your clinical and line-of-business software runs on, and we coordinate directly with your software vendor when something breaks rather than sending your staff into a third-party support queue. We are not a reseller for any EHR and we do not require you to change platforms. If your vendor publishes infrastructure requirements, we build to them. ## Support and response Hours, response objectives by priority, and when we come to you. ### What are your support hours? Support runs Mon-Fri, 8:00 AM-5:30 PM Eastern Time (ET). Optional 24/7 coverage for critical (P1) incidents is available as a paid add-on. Monitoring, patching, and automated remediation run around the clock on every package regardless of support hours. ### How quickly do you respond to a problem? Response objectives are published by priority level: within 2 business hours for a P1 critical outage, 4 business hours for P2 significant degradation, and 8 business hours for P3 limited degradation. Clients who purchase the 24/7 add-on get a two-hour after-hours objective for P1 incidents. These are response objectives, not contractual guarantees, and the full table with P4 and P5 targets is published on the service level objectives page. ### Do you come on-site, or is everything remote? Both. Vulpine Solutions is based in Riverview, Florida and provides in-person service across greater Tampa Bay, with remote support covering everything that does not require hands on hardware. Clients with staff or locations outside the area get the same remote coverage nationwide. ### What areas do you serve? Vulpine Solutions provides on-site service across Riverview, Brandon, Valrico, Lithia, Apollo Beach, Ruskin, Tampa, and Sun City Center, Florida, and the surrounding greater Tampa Bay area. Remote support is available nationwide. ## Switching to us Transition timelines, who we are not a fit for, and what happens after you ask. ### How long does it take to switch providers? Most clients are fully transitioned within two weeks. Longer timelines happen when an outgoing provider is running out a contract or an environment needs remediation before it can be managed safely. You are told which of those applies before onboarding starts, not after. ### Who is Vulpine Solutions not a good fit for? Vulpine Solutions is not the right choice if you already have a full in-house IT department, if you are shopping for the cheapest break-fix hourly rate, or if you want unmonitored personal devices on your network. For HIPAA-regulated practices, running Google Workspace is also a disqualifier — MedFortress™ standardizes on Microsoft 365. Every client environment is expected to meet the published security baseline. ### What happens after I request an assessment? We respond within one business day to schedule a 30-minute discovery call. On that call we walk through your current environment: network, security, backups, vendors, and whatever prompted you to reach out. If the assessment makes sense from there, we complete it and give you a written report with a prioritized list of what to fix first — findings you keep whether or not you hire us. ## Request an IT assessment We complete an in-depth assessment of your IT systems. We review your computers, network, email, backups, and security posture. You get a written report with a prioritized list of what to fix first. You get the findings whether you hire us or not. It’s a flat $1,950, credited in full toward onboarding if you sign within 30 days. - [(727) 312-9686](tel:+17273129686) - [contact@vulpinemsp.com](mailto:contact@vulpinemsp.com) [Request an IT assessment](https://vulpinemsp.com/contact/) ![Vulpine Solutions mark](https://vulpinemsp.com/brand/logo-trim.webp) --- **Vulpine Solutions, LLC** — Veteran-owned managed IT and cybersecurity provider based in Riverview, Florida, serving medical practices and professional services firms across the greater Tampa Bay area, with remote support nationwide. Phone: (727) 312-9686 · Email: contact@vulpinemsp.com · Web: https://vulpinemsp.com/ Canonical HTML version of this page: https://vulpinemsp.com/faq/