Earthquakes, Power Shutoffs and Wildfire Smoke: A Continuity Plan for Los Angeles Dental Offices
It is 7:40 a.m. at a practice in Glendale. A quake rolled through the basin overnight, felt from Pasadena to Long Beach. The lights are on, a monitor has tipped over, the internet is dead, and patients are already calling to ask whether the office is open.
This article builds that plan with you. Choosing a partner to run it is another matter, handled on Legend Networking's page about dental IT support in Los Angeles. Here we stay on the hands-on side, for the owner or office manager who will be the one standing at that front desk. For the wider metro picture (sub-markets, internet options and how support reaches an office on Pacific time), see the Los Angeles dental IT guide.
We picture a small practice: three to six chairs, a reception area, perhaps an on-site server, plus sensors, a firewall, network gear, battery backup and one internet circuit that carries the day. You will find no battery runtimes, restore times or quake odds invented for this page; each figure we use is credited in the Sources list near the end.
In this guide
- What can take a Los Angeles dental office offline, and how much warning do you get?
- How should a Los Angeles dental office earthquake and power-outage plan change for each event?
- Which utility serves your office, and why does it matter for a shutoff?
- How do you protect a server closet and operatories in earthquake country?
- Where should your data live so one regional event doesn't take every copy?
- What happens to the schedule and charts when smoke, an evacuation order or a shutoff closes the office?
- What should monitoring and your IT provider do before, during and after an outage?
- How do you test the plan without closing the practice?
- What to ask your IT provider about earthquakes and shutoffs
- Key takeaways
- Sources
- Frequently asked questions
- The bottom line
What can take a Los Angeles dental office offline, and how much warning do you get?
Five events can close a dental office here: an earthquake, a Southern California Edison Public Safety Power Shutoff, an outage on LADWP or a city utility, wildfire smoke or an evacuation order, and loss of the internet line. They differ most in warning, from none for shaking to up to three days for some shutoffs.
Most continuity plans start with the question "how long can we be down?" That is a fair question for a provider, but it does not help the person at the front desk at 7:40 a.m. The more useful question is: what happened, and what does that event allow you to do before it hits? In this region the answer varies more than in most metros.
- An earthquake gives no warning you can plan around. Whatever is not secured before the shaking stays where it falls. Scientists expect a large Southern California earthquake within decades, and California's UCERF3 earthquake forecast, led by the US Geological Survey, the Southern California Earthquake Center and the California Geological Survey, estimates a "greater increase in the likelihood of larger earthquakes" in the Los Angeles region.
- A Public Safety Power Shutoff (PSPS) is, as Southern California Edison defines it, a utility choosing to "temporarily shut off power to reduce the risk of its equipment causing a fire". SCE says it starts notifying customers "up to three days in advance", sends an expected-shutoff notice when power could go off "within one to four hours", and warns that when conditions change suddenly "there might be little to no notice".
- A utility outage on LADWP or a city utility (a failed transformer, a car against a pole, a heat-wave overload) usually arrives with no notice at all and may last minutes or much longer.
- Wildfire smoke or an evacuation order can close the office while the building, the power and the server are fine. The problem is that people cannot safely be there.
- An internet outage stops cloud software, e-claims, internet phones and card terminals with the power still on. That event has its own walkthrough in what to do when the dental office internet is down.
The table in the next section turns those five events into actions.
How should a Los Angeles dental office earthquake and power-outage plan change for each event?
The plan changes by what the event leaves standing. After shaking, check people, then the closet, before anything is restarted. Before a shutoff, shut down in order while there is still power. When smoke or an order closes the building, reach the schedule and charts remotely. Table 1 lists the warning, what stops and the first three moves.
Table 1: Five ways a Los Angeles dental office goes dark
Print this table and keep one copy at the front desk and one inside the closet door.
| Event | Warning you get | What stops in the office | First three actions | What must already be in place |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Earthquake | None you can plan around | Power may drop; monitors, towers and equipment can tip or fall; cables pull loose; water lines can leak into rooms with equipment | 1. People first: follow your safety plan and leave the building if it is unsafe. 2. Once it is safe, look at the closet before touching any switch: water, fallen gear, smell of burning. 3. Call your IT provider before restarting the server | Equipment secured as your installer specifies; server off the floor and away from water lines; an offsite copy outside Southern California; a written restart order |
| SCE Public Safety Power Shutoff | SCE says notices start up to three days ahead, an expected-shutoff notice comes within one to four hours, and sometimes there is little to no notice | Everything on utility power; the UPS carries what is plugged into it until the battery runs out | 1. Read the notice and confirm the address and time window on SCE's outage map. 2. Decide whether to close, shorten the day or reschedule. 3. Shut down in order before the power goes, not after the UPS alarms | Current contact details on the SCE account; a shutdown order; a patient-messaging script; staff who can work from home |
| LADWP or city-utility outage | Usually none | Same as a shutoff, but without the chance to shut down ahead of time | 1. Check your utility's outage map and report the outage. 2. Save open charts and images and start the shutdown order while the UPS still has charge. 3. Write down when power went off and when it came back | UPS on the server, firewall and network gear; the utility account number posted in the closet; the outage map bookmarked |
| Wildfire smoke or evacuation order | Hours to days for smoke; little time for an order | People cannot be in the office; the building and systems may still be running | 1. Follow the order and close. 2. Confirm remote access works for the scheduler and the doctor. 3. Forward the main number and send patients one message | Remote access tested this quarter; a way to forward the main number; patient contact list reachable from outside the office |
| Internet loss | None | Hosted practice software, claim submission, network phones, payment terminals and image uploads, while the lights stay on | 1. See whether traffic failed over to a backup circuit, if one exists. 2. Look up the carrier's business status page. 3. Run check-in on paper or a phone hotspot until the line returns | A backup circuit from a different route or technology; the carrier's account and circuit IDs taped in the closet |
Two patterns come out of the table. First, only one event (a planned shutoff) reliably gives time to act on the day, so everything else depends on what was done in advance. Second, three of the five events leave the equipment working while the office still cannot run, which is why remote access and the phone plan matter as much as the server.
If you want a second set of eyes on how your own office would come through each row, ask for a Free Dental IT Assessment.
Which utility serves your office, and why does it matter for a shutoff?
Your utility decides which outage map you check, which alerts you get and whether planned shutoffs apply to you. Across greater Los Angeles that can be LADWP, Southern California Edison or a city-owned utility, and the boundaries do not follow neighborhood names. The electric bill for the suite is the one reliable answer.
Here is what the three kinds of utility say about themselves, from their own sites.
| Utility type | Who it is (in its own words) | Where to check outages | Planned shutoffs |
|---|---|---|---|
| LADWP | "The nation's largest municipal power utility", with "more than 1.6 million electric service customers" in fiscal year 2023-24 | ladwp.com/outages | LADWP publishes a Wildfire Mitigation Plan and says it is reviewing it after the early 2025 fires; read it for your area |
| Southern California Edison (SCE) | A utility with 5 million customers, per its own shutoff page | SCE's Outage Map (enter the address) | SCE runs Public Safety Power Shutoffs; customers in high fire-risk areas are more likely to be affected |
| A city utility (for example Burbank Water and Power, and Pasadena Water and Power) | Burbank Water and Power describes itself as "owned by the citizens of Burbank"; Pasadena Water and Power is a City of Pasadena department | burbankwaterandpower.com/power-outage-page · pwp.cityofpasadena.net/outage-map | Check the city utility's own notices; do not assume SCE's program applies |
Some other cities in the region may run their own power utilities too, and an office a few blocks from a city line can sit on a different system from its neighbor. That is why this page does not assign Santa Monica, Torrance, Irvine or any other city to a utility. Look it up.
The ten-minute utility check
- Pull last month's power bill for the suite and copy two things from it: the utility and the account number.
- No bill of your own because the landlord pays power? Then the building manager knows the utility, and the account holder is the landlord, so shutoff and outage alerts reach the landlord first. Ask to be added as a contact, or ask the manager to forward alerts.
- Look up the office address on that utility's outage map and bookmark the page on the front-desk PC and on two staff phones.
- If you are on SCE, sign up for outage and shutoff alerts on the account and make sure the contact is a phone that someone checks on weekends.
- Look up the address on the CPUC Fire-Threat Map (ia.cpuc.ca.gov/firemap). Check foothill and canyon-edge addresses with extra care, from Santa Clarita to the hills above Pasadena. If the map shows your office in or near a high fire-threat area, treat the shutoff row of Table 1 as a likely event, not a rare one.
- Tape the utility name, account number and outage-map address inside the closet door, next to Table 1.
Still looking at suites? Run the utility check before the lease is signed, alongside the internet and cabling questions covered in IT for a new dental office in Los Angeles.
How do you protect a server closet and operatories in earthquake country?
Protect the closet by keeping what falls from falling and what floods from flooding. Have the rack, UPS units and any tall equipment secured as your installer specifies, keep the server off the floor and away from water lines, and leave enough cable slack that a shift cannot pull a connector. Then photograph the result.
The Southern California Earthquake Center's guidance for homes and workplaces starts with the same idea: secure items that could fall during shaking. In a dental office, the items that matter for IT are in four places.
1. The closet or rack. A floor-standing rack or tall shelf with a server, a switch, a firewall and a UPS on it is top-heavy. The UPS is usually the heaviest item and belongs at the bottom. How a rack, shelf or cabinet is anchored is a question for your installer or contractor and depends on the wall, the floor and the building; we do not give engineering advice here, and neither should your IT provider unless that is their trade. What your IT provider can do is check that the equipment inside is mounted, strapped or shelved the way the installer intended.
2. Water. Many dental closets share a wall with a sink, a water heater or the sterilization room. After shaking, a cracked fitting can leak for hours into a room nobody opens until morning. Keep the server and the backup device off the floor, out from under pipes and away from the water heater. If the only space available is next to water, that is a reason to move the equipment, not to accept the risk.
3. Cables and slack. A rack that moves a little is often survivable; a cable stretched tight between a wall jack and a switch is not. Ask for a little slack on patch cables and power leads, a labeled patch panel, and no power strips daisy-chained across the floor.
4. Operatories and the front desk. Monitors on arms, towers under the counter, sensors and their docking cradles, intraoral cameras and printers can all fall. Arms and mounts should be installed as the manufacturer and installer specify. Imaging sensors are expensive and easy to drop; store them in their cradles at the end of the day, not on the edge of a tray.
Closet walk-through for earthquake country
| What to check | What good looks like | Who checks | How often |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rack, shelf or cabinet anchoring | Done and documented by the installer; photo on file | Installer, then IT provider | Once, and after any move |
| UPS position | At the bottom of the rack or on the floor next to it, not on a top shelf | IT provider | Each visit |
| Server and backup device | Off the floor, not under pipes, not beside the water heater | Practice and IT provider | Once a year |
| Cable slack and labels | Patch cables with slack; patch panel and every cable labeled | IT provider | Each change |
| Water nearby | No sink, pipe or water heater above or beside equipment | Practice | Once a year |
| Monitors, towers and sensors in operatories | Monitor arms installed to spec; towers secured; sensors in cradles at close | Practice (daily), installer (once) | Daily for sensors |
| Closet photo | Door open, whole rack visible, dated | Practice | Every six months |
| Restart order | Printed inside the closet door with Table 1 | Practice | Updated after each change |
Which devices need a UPS, and which can simply shut down?
This is a device list, not a runtime promise. Battery size and how long it carries a load depend on your equipment; your IT provider sizes that.
- On a UPS: the server (if you still have one), the firewall, the core network switch, the switch that powers your desk phones if they run over the network, the internet modem or router your carrier installed, the backup device or network storage, and the front-desk PC that would open the schedule during a short outage.
- Can shut down: operatory workstations, imaging acquisition PCs (after images are saved), the doctor's office PC and most staff PCs. Shut them down cleanly; do not leave them for the UPS to carry.
- Not on a UPS: laser printers, space heaters, coffee makers, label printers and anything else that draws a lot of power for a short time. A UPS socket is for IT equipment.
How to shut down in the right order, and how to bring systems back, has its own guide: server shutdown mistakes to avoid. The order there is the order to print inside your closet door.
Where should your data live so one regional event doesn't take every copy?
Keep at least one current copy outside Southern California. A copy in your closet and a copy in a data center elsewhere in Los Angeles or Orange County can be hit by the same earthquake, fire or regional outage. Pair the on-site copy with one in another region, test restoring from it, and know which internet path the restore needs.
Ask your IT provider three plain questions about the backup you have today:
- Where is each copy, physically? "The cloud" is not an answer. You want the region or state for each copy. If every copy is in Southern California, one regional event could reach all of them.
- When did someone last restore from the offsite copy, and what did they restore? A backup that has never been restored is a hope. A restore test should open a real chart and a real image from the backup on a PC that is not the server.
- What does the restore need? A cloud copy is only reachable over the internet. If the office line is down after an earthquake, the restore may happen from a different location, on a different connection, to a different machine. Write down where that would be.
If your practice software is already in the cloud
Cloud-hosted practice management moves the database out of your closet, which helps after shaking or a flood. It does not remove every risk. The office still needs power and an internet path to reach the software; imaging often still lives on a local PC or server; and the phones may depend on the same internet line. Ask your provider which of your systems are cloud-hosted, which are still local, and what each needs to work from a staff member's home. If you run Dentrix, Eaglesoft, Open Dental or another system, the answer differs by version and setup; dental software and imaging support in Los Angeles covers how those systems behave when one part fails.
What a dental backup should contain, item by item, is set out in the dental backup and disaster recovery checklist. For how the common backup approaches compare, see dental backup solutions. If you want a provider to run the backup for you, Legend's backup and recovery service for dental offices is the page to read.
What happens to the schedule and charts when smoke, an evacuation order or a shutoff closes the office?
When the building is closed but the systems still run, the job is to reach them from somewhere else. The scheduler needs the day's appointments, the doctor needs charts and images for any patient who must be seen elsewhere, and the main number needs to reach a person. All three have to be set up and tested before the closure.
The January 2025 fires showed how fast a closure can come. CAL FIRE records that the Palisades Fire started on January 7, 2025, burned 23,448 acres and destroyed 6,845 structures. The Eaton Fire, in the Altadena and Pasadena area, started that evening, burned 14,021 acres and destroyed 9,419 structures. Both were contained on January 31, 2025.
A closure plan has four parts. Use this as a checklist.
Remote access
- [ ] The scheduler and at least one doctor can open the practice software from home, using the method your IT provider set up, with multi-factor sign-in.
- [ ] Someone has tested it from home in the last three months, not just from the office.
- [ ] Imaging can be viewed remotely, or you know which images cannot be reached from outside the office.
Phones
- [ ] You know how to forward the main number to a cell phone or another office, and who is allowed to do it. Ask your phone provider how, and write the steps down.
- [ ] The voicemail greeting for a closure is recorded in advance and can be switched on remotely.
- [ ] If your alarm, fax or elevator line still runs on an old copper line, you know what happens to it in an outage. POTS line replacement for dental offices explains the options.
Patients
- [ ] One short message template for "we are closed today", one for "we have reopened", and one for "your appointment has moved".
- [ ] The patient contact list can be reached from outside the office.
Records
- [ ] The day's schedule is printed or exported at the end of each day during a fire-weather or shutoff warning.
- [ ] Nobody takes charts or devices home without the same protections they have in the office.
What should monitoring and your IT provider do before, during and after an outage?
Before: check UPS health and the backup, and confirm who receives alerts. During: watch for devices dropping offline and shut the server down remotely before the battery runs out. After: bring systems up in order, confirm the backup ran, and tell you when it is safe to see patients. Ask for each step in writing.
This is where the plan moves from the office to the provider. Here is what a reasonable split looks like.
| Phase | Practice does | IT provider does | Utility or carrier does |
|---|---|---|---|
| Before (each quarter) | Keeps contacts current with the utility; runs the drill; keeps the closet clear | Checks UPS self-tests and battery age; checks the backup and the offsite copy; confirms the remote-access method works | Sends shutoff or outage notices to the account contact |
| During | Saves work, follows the shutdown order, records times, messages patients | Watches devices go offline; shuts the server down remotely if the UPS runs low; logs what happened | Restores power or service |
| After | Checks the closet for water or fallen gear before anything is restarted | Starts systems in order; confirms the database and backup are healthy; tells the office when to open charts | Confirms restoration |
Legend Networking runs 24/7 monitoring, and its helpdesk is staffed 24/7 at 1-800-794-1588. That matters here because Los Angeles is two hours behind Dallas all year: a 7:40 a.m. call from Glendale lands at 9:40 a.m. in Dallas, and a 9 p.m. outage alert from a Long Beach office arrives at 11 p.m. there. Its engineers are in-house, with no outsourced first-level triage, and visits work as onsite dispatch by appointment across served dental markets; remote-first nationwide. Day-to-day software and support issues are handled remotely; cabling, installations, equipment moves and new-office build-outs are scheduled onsite by appointment. Legend Networking has 22+ years in dental IT (since 2004), has served over 3,500 practices since 2004 and carries a 4.8 rating from 173 Google reviews. This article's author is Ian Lynch — 22 years in dental IT; oversees the NOC, onsite dispatch and client technology roadmaps.
Two things are worth checking with any provider. First, how monitoring and the helpdesk differ: 24/7 monitoring vs dental IT support explains the difference. Second, whether outage steps are part of the plan you pay for or billed separately. Monitoring, remote shutdown and a written power-on order are the kind of work a managed plan covers; Los Angeles dental managed IT sets out what to expect and how to compare plans. If you are comparing providers across the region more broadly, Legend's page on dental IT services in Los Angeles covers the region. If the network itself needs a redesign (a second internet path, a cleaner closet, separated phone and guest networks), see dental network design.
How do you test the plan without closing the practice?
Run a short drill once a quarter, before opening or after the last patient. Walk the call list, open a chart and an image from the backup on a PC that is not the server, check that the main number can be forwarded, and confirm the offsite copy restored. Write down what failed and who fixes it.
Until it has been rehearsed, a Los Angeles dental office earthquake and power-outage plan is only paper. The drill below turns it into a habit and fits in about 30 minutes; nothing in it requires turning off the power or closing the schedule.
The quarterly drill script
| Minute | Step | Who | Pass when |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–5 | Pick one event from Table 1 and read its row aloud | Office manager | Everyone present knows the first three actions |
| 5–10 | Run the call list: office manager calls the doctor, the doctor calls the IT provider's number, one staff member texts the team | Office manager, doctor, one staff member | Every call connects; the list has no wrong numbers |
| 10–15 | Check the utility: open the bookmarked outage map; confirm the account contact | Front desk | Map opens on the front-desk PC and a phone; contact is current |
| 15–20 | Open one chart and one image from the backup on a PC that is not the server | IT provider (remote) with the front desk | Chart and image open and match the live record |
| 20–25 | Confirm the offsite copy outside Southern California restored a test file this quarter | IT provider | Provider names the file, date and region |
| 25–30 | Test call forwarding on the main number, then switch it back; record what failed | Front desk | Forwarding works both ways; failures have an owner and a date |
Rotate the event each quarter so that over a year you practice an earthquake, a planned shutoff, a smoke closure and an internet loss. File the notes with the closet photo.
What to ask your IT provider about earthquakes and shutoffs
Bring these eight questions to your next quarterly review, or to any provider you are weighing for dental office IT in Los Angeles. Ask for the answers in writing.
- Do you have our utility and account number on file for each location, and whose phone gets the outage and shutoff alerts?
- Where, by region, is each copy of our data, and is at least one outside Southern California?
- When did you last restore a chart and an image from our offsite copy, and onto which machine?
- Which of our devices are on a UPS, and when was each battery last tested?
- If the power is about to fail, can you take our server down remotely, and when did you last actually do it for us?
- What is our written power-on order after an outage, and who confirms it is safe to open charts?
- Can our scheduler and doctor reach the schedule and charts from home today, and how was that tested?
- Which of these outage steps are part of our plan, and which are billed separately?
Key takeaways
- Plan by event: shaking gives no warning, an SCE shutoff may give up to three days or almost none, and smoke or a cut line can close the office with the systems still running.
- Find your utility on the bill, then bookmark that utility's outage map; on SCE, also check the CPUC Fire-Threat Map for your address.
- Secure the closet as your installer specifies, keep the server off the floor and away from water, and print the restart order inside the door.
- Keep one current copy of your data outside Southern California, and restore from it every quarter.
- Test remote access, call forwarding and the call list in a short quarterly drill, rotating the event each time.
Sources
- Southern California Edison, Public Safety Power Shutoffs: definition, notice "up to three days in advance", expected-shutoff notice "within one to four hours", "little to no notice", high fire risk areas, 5 million customers, Outage Map. sce.com/outage-center/outage-information/psps. Accessed October 26, 2026.
- LADWP, Power System: "the nation's largest municipal power utility", "more than 1.6 million electric service customers" in fiscal year 2023-24, Wildfire Mitigation Plan. ladwp.com/who-we-are/power-system. Accessed October 26, 2026.
- LADWP outages: ladwp.com/outages. Accessed October 26, 2026.
- Burbank Water and Power, home page and outage page: burbankwaterandpower.com. Accessed October 26, 2026.
- Pasadena Water and Power, home page and outage map: pwp.cityofpasadena.net. Accessed October 26, 2026.
- California Public Utilities Commission, Fire-Threat Map: ia.cpuc.ca.gov/firemap. Accessed October 26, 2026.
- CAL FIRE, Palisades Fire incident page: fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025/1/7/palisades-fire. Accessed October 26, 2026.
- CAL FIRE, Eaton Fire incident page: fire.ca.gov/incidents/2025/1/7/eaton-fire. Accessed October 26, 2026.
- Southern California Earthquake Center, UCERF3 (forecast led by the USGS, SCEC and the California Geological Survey; archived page): southern.scec.org/ucerf. Accessed October 26, 2026.
- Earthquake Country Alliance, Seven Steps to Earthquake Safety: earthquakecountry.org/sevensteps. Accessed October 26, 2026.
Frequently asked questions
What should a Los Angeles dental office do with its technology after an earthquake, once everyone is safe?
Look before you switch anything on. Check the closet for water, fallen equipment or a burning smell, and keep people out if the building is unsafe. If the closet looks sound, call your IT provider before restarting the server, then bring systems up in the written order. Open a chart and an image to confirm the data is intact before the first patient, and ask the provider to confirm the backup ran.
Could a Public Safety Power Shutoff affect a dental office on Southern California Edison's grid?
Yes. SCE says customers in high fire risk areas are more likely to experience a shutoff, and nearby customers can be affected too. SCE starts notifying up to three days ahead, sends an expected-shutoff notice within one to four hours, and says there may sometimes be little to no notice. Keep the account contact current, check your address on SCE's Outage Map and the CPUC Fire-Threat Map, and shut down in order before the power goes.
How do we find out whether our office is on LADWP, SCE or a city utility?
The suite's power bill names the utility and carries the account number. If the landlord pays for power, the building manager can tell you, and alerts will go to the landlord unless you are added as a contact. Service lines do not follow neighborhood or city names, so a guess from the address is unreliable. Save that utility's outage map on the front-desk PC and post the account number in the closet.
How should a Los Angeles dental office protect its server closet from shaking?
Have the rack, shelf or cabinet and the UPS secured as your installer specifies, with the UPS at the bottom. Keep the server and backup device off the floor and away from sinks, pipes and the water heater. Leave slack in patch and power cables, label the patch panel, and photograph the closet every six months so your IT provider can see changes without a visit.
What happens to our schedule and charts if wildfire smoke or an evacuation order closes the office?
The systems may keep running while nobody can be in the building, so the plan is to reach them from elsewhere. The scheduler and a doctor should be able to open the practice software from home with multi-factor sign-in, tested in the last three months. Know how to forward the main number, have closure messages ready for patients, and keep the patient contact list reachable outside the office.
Where should a Los Angeles dental practice keep its offsite backup?
Keep at least one current copy outside Southern California, so that a single earthquake, fire or regional outage cannot reach every copy. Ask your provider to name the region for each copy, to restore a chart and an image from the offsite copy every quarter, and to write down where a restore would happen if the office internet were down.
Which devices need a UPS in a Los Angeles dental office, and which can simply shut down?
Put the server, firewall, core switch, the switch powering desk phones, the carrier's modem or router, the backup device and the front-desk PC on a UPS. Operatory workstations, imaging PCs and staff PCs can shut down cleanly once work is saved. Keep laser printers, heaters and coffee makers off UPS sockets. Your IT provider sizes the batteries; this list does not promise any runtime.
How often should a Los Angeles dental office test its continuity plan?
Once a quarter is a workable rhythm. Pick one event from your plan, run the call list, open a chart and an image from the backup on a PC that is not the server, confirm the offsite copy restored a test file, and test forwarding on the main number. Rotate the event each quarter so the team practices an earthquake, a shutoff, a smoke closure and an internet loss over a year.
The bottom line
If this article raised questions you cannot answer about your own office (which utility you are on, where your offsite copy sits, whether the scheduler can work from home), that is a good place to start. We would be glad to look at it with you: ask for a Free Dental IT Assessment, and come with your utility bill, your closet photo and your last backup report.