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Internet Outage Continuity Planning for Tampa Bay Dental
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Ezra Angelo
- • August 7, 2026
When a dental practice ran Dentrix on a local server, an internet outage was an inconvenience: email stopped working and the website went down, but the PMS, imaging system, and scheduling data were all local and continued functioning. When a practice runs Dentrix Ascend, Curve Dental, or CareStack in the cloud, an internet outage stops everything. Patient records are inaccessible, scheduling cannot be accessed, treatment cannot be documented in the PMS, and the practice effectively cannot operate.
Ekim IT Solutions is the dental-exclusive IT provider serving Tampa Bay from our office at 600 N Westshore Blvd, Suite 701, Tampa, FL 33609, and internet outage continuity is a planning requirement that has become more urgent as Tampa Bay dental practices have migrated to cloud-based practice management systems.
Internet outage continuity planning determines whether a Tampa Bay dental practice experiences a 20-minute disruption or a half-day shutdown when the internet goes down.
Spectrum, Frontier, and other internet providers serving Tampa Bay commercial areas experience outages from equipment failure, fiber cuts, storms, and upstream provider issues. The Tampa Bay area has experienced significant internet infrastructure disruption during hurricane seasons. A cloud PMS practice with no failover connectivity has no clinical operations when the primary internet fails.
LTE Cellular Failover for Tampa Bay Dental Practices
LTE cellular failover uses a 4G or 5G cellular data connection as a secondary internet path that activates automatically when the primary connection fails, monitoring the connection continuously and switching to cellular within seconds of detecting a failure so staff see only a brief interruption before restored access to the cloud PMS and email. LTE failover bandwidth is typically lower than primary fiber or cable internet, which affects bandwidth-intensive applications like CBCT image transmission, but for the core clinical workflow of accessing patient records, documenting treatment, and scheduling, LTE failover provides adequate performance for most Tampa Bay practices to continue seeing patients through a primary internet outage.
Continuity Planning by PMS Type
Internet outage impact and continuity planning differs significantly by PMS type.
Dentrix Ascend, Curve Dental, CareStack, and similar platforms require internet access for all PMS functions, making LTE failover the primary continuity mechanism.
Practices without LTE failover should have a documented downtime procedure including paper-based patient documentation templates for outages that exceed LTE failover coverage.
Dentrix, Eaglesoft, and Open Dental on a local server continue functioning during internet outages because the PMS database is local.
Internet-dependent functions including insurance verification, patient communication platforms, and cloud backup suspend during the outage, but clinical operations continue.
Practices using a server-based PMS alongside cloud platforms for patient communication, insurance verification, or analytics still need LTE failover.
Failover maintains the cloud platform functions even when the PMS continues working locally.
Documentation for Internet Outage Continuity
HIPAA requires covered entities to have contingency plans that include emergency mode operation procedures describing how the practice will operate during a system failure, and internet outage contingency procedures are part of this requirement for cloud PMS practices. Ekim IT Solutions documents the internet outage contingency plan for every Tampa Bay practice we support, including the LTE failover configuration, the downtime procedure for extended outages, and the data reconciliation process for any treatment documented on paper during a prolonged outage.
See How Fast Failover Kicks In
Run the simulation to see what staff experience during a primary internet outage.
Frequently Asked Questions
Ekim IT Solutions serves Tampa Bay from our office at 600 N Westshore Blvd, Suite 701. We build continuity plans for Dentrix Ascend, Curve Dental, and CareStack so an outage becomes a 20-minute disruption instead of a half-day shutdown.
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- • August 7, 2026
