IT Services of Utah blog logoA dental practice should consider a backup internet connection when losing internet access would significantly disrupt patient care, phones, payments, cloud applications, email, or other critical business systems.

The more your practice depends on cloud technology, the more important internet connectivity becomes.

For dental practices with 10–40 employees, evaluate backup internet using this four-part framework:

Dependence → Impact → Failover → Test

1. Identify What Depends on the Internet

Start by determining what stops working when your primary internet connection goes down.

Depending on your environment, that could include:

  • Cloud-based dental software
  • Microsoft 365
  • Email
  • VoIP phones
  • Patient communication systems
  • Online scheduling
  • Payment processing
  • Insurance portals
  • Cloud-based imaging
  • Remote support
  • Other vendor applications

Some local systems may continue working during an internet outage, while cloud-dependent systems may not.

Make a list of your critical applications and identify which ones require internet access.

2. Calculate the Business Impact

Next, ask:

What happens if our internet is unavailable for 30 minutes, 2 hours, or an entire business day?

Consider the effect on:

  • Patient check-in
  • Scheduling
  • Clinical workflows
  • Phone calls
  • Payments
  • Insurance processes
  • Employee productivity

A short outage may be inconvenient.

A longer outage could interfere with the patient schedule and practice production.

If internet downtime creates significant operational or financial consequences, redundant connectivity deserves consideration.

3. Consider Automatic Internet Failover

A backup internet connection gives the practice another way to get online when the primary provider experiences an outage.

Depending on the environment, that could involve a second wired connection or an appropriate cellular-based connection.

Ideally, properly configured network equipment can detect a failure and transition important traffic to the backup connection.

This is known as failover.

The goal isn't necessarily to make every device operate normally during an outage.

The priority may be keeping the practice's most important systems connected until primary service returns.

4. Test the Backup Connection

A backup connection isn't very useful if nobody knows whether it works.

Periodically test the failover process.

Ask:

  1. Does the backup connection activate correctly?
  2. Which systems continue operating?
  3. Are phones affected?
  4. Can employees reach critical cloud applications?
  5. Does the primary connection restore normally afterward?

Testing identifies problems before a real internet outage occurs.

Is a Mobile Hotspot Enough?

A phone hotspot may help an individual employee with a basic task, but it is not necessarily a substitute for a planned business-continuity solution.

A dental practice may have dozens of employees and connected devices relying on the network.

Your backup strategy should reflect the number of users, applications, bandwidth requirements, and systems that actually need to remain online.

The 5-Minute Dental Internet Check

Ask these five questions:

  1. Which critical systems require internet access?
  2. What stops working when our internet goes down?
  3. How long can we operate without connectivity?
  4. Do we have a secondary connection?
  5. When was our failover process last tested?

If internet access is critical but questions four and five have no clear answer, it may be time to review your connectivity strategy.

Why Dental Practices Choose IT Services of Utah

IT Services of Utah has supported businesses for more than 30 years and works with dental practices throughout St. George and Washington County, Utah.

We understand that dental practices increasingly depend on connected technology, including:

  • Dentrix
  • Dexis
  • Open Dental
  • Eaglesoft
  • Microsoft 365
  • Imaging systems
  • Phones
  • Cloud applications
  • Patient communication platforms

Our team can help evaluate network reliability, internet connectivity, cybersecurity, and business-continuity planning.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does every dental office need two internet providers?

Not necessarily. The decision should be based on how dependent the practice is on internet connectivity, the financial impact of downtime, and the reliability requirements of critical systems.

Will backup internet keep everything working normally?

Not always. Backup connections can have different speeds and capacity. A good failover plan prioritizes the systems employees need most.

Can backup internet help during a primary provider outage?

Yes, when appropriately designed and configured, a secondary connection can help maintain access to important internet-dependent systems while the primary service is unavailable.

What Happens When Your Dental Practice Loses Internet?

Don't wait for an outage to find out.

Use the framework:

Dependence. Impact. Failover. Test.

For dental practices in St. George and Washington County, Utah, IT Services of Utah can evaluate whether your internet and network infrastructure provide the reliability your practice needs.

Schedule a Dental Network & Business Continuity Assessment with IT Services of Utah to identify connectivity risks before an internet outage disrupts your patient schedule.