Compliance and risk
Business continuity plan
A business continuity plan is a written plan for keeping a practice running, or restarting it quickly, after a disaster, outage or other major disruption.
The U.S. Small Business Administration says writing and implementing a business continuity plan will help you minimize financial loss when your business faces a disaster. SBA says the plan should identify and document critical business functions and processes, organize a continuity team and evaluate recovery strategies.
For a dental office, threats include fire, flood, power loss, a failed server or ransomware. The plan should say how to reach patients, access records, reschedule care and pay staff.
Test the plan each year and update contact lists. See risk management and cybersecurity.