---
title: "What Is Risk management? Dental Practice Glossary"
description: "Risk management is the work of finding, ranking and reducing the chance of legal, safety, financial or data harm to a practice."
url: https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/risk-management
publisher: Copeland Consulting Services
email: drcopeland@joncopelanddds.com
contact: https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/contact
---

Compliance and risk

# Risk management

Risk management is the work of finding, ranking and reducing the chance of legal, safety, financial or data harm to a practice.

NIST describes risk management as processes that include establishing the context for risk-related activities, assessing risk, responding to risk once determined, and monitoring risk over time.

In a dental office, risks include patient injury, data loss, employment claims, theft and fire. Owners can reduce them with written policies, training, backups, insurance and regular reviews. See [dental malpractice insurance](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/dental-malpractice-insurance) and [business continuity plan](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/business-continuity-plan).

No office can remove all risk. The goal is to know the largest risks and to have a plan for each. A [compliance checklist](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/compliance-checklist) can help track the work. Ask an adviser about insurance and legal duties.

[Next stepPractice consulting with Dr. Copeland](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/contact?topic=consulting)

## Related terms

-   [Dental malpractice insurance](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/dental-malpractice-insurance)
-   [Business continuity plan](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/business-continuity-plan)
-   [Compliance checklist](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/compliance-checklist)
-   [Cybersecurity](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/glossary/cybersecurity)

## Sources

1.  [NIST Computer Security Resource Center: risk management](https://csrc.nist.gov/glossary/term/risk_management)

## Talk with Dr. Copeland

[Contact Dr. Copeland](https://joncopeland.multisites.ai/contact)[Email](mailto:drcopeland@joncopelanddds.com)