Although a computerized practice management and billing system is a critical part of any practice and a system that the practice can not afford to be without, few chiropractors think about the impact that a system outage or loss of data could have on their practice. When a system problem does occur such as an electrical problem which damages the computer or loss of data because of a disk drive crash, unfortunately it is often too late to effectively recover from these computer problems.

Now is the time to think about contingency planning for your computer system before you experience a serious problem that could dramatically reduce practice profitability. The first step in developing any type of computer contingency plan is to identify the types of potential problems which could occur when a computer disaster occurs and develop plans and strategies to prevent the problem from occurring or minimize the impact of the problem.

Examples of the types of computer problems which could occur include but are not limited to:

- A fire at your practice thst damages computer equipment
- Loss of data because of a hard drive crash
- Employee theft of patient records compromising HIPA compliance

One of the first, but often not implemented procedures, which should be put into place for your computer system is to back up all of the data from your system on at a daily basis. In addition, the backup media should be stored off site each day in case the practice offices are compromised by such events as a fire at the facility. Besides backing up data on a daily basis, the backup copies should be periodically checked to make sure that backed up data can be restored.

Besides backing up the data itself, it is recommended that at least once a week computer programs installed on the system are also backed up. Another useful contingency plan is to set up the computer system so that it can be accessed remotely on a dial up basis. This remote access could be required in several situations including, for example, a bad snowstorm during the winter months.

Developing a contingency plan is not as difficult as it may seem because there are many sources of information available on how to develop such a plan. This information can be obtained from such sources as books published on the topic, research conducted on the Internet about this subject, or even contingency planning information which may be provided by your practice management and billing system software vendor.

Although most of the records in a medical practice are computerized, there should also be developed some type of contingency plan for paper records which are not stored on the computer. One recommendation is that paper records older than one year be stored at some off-site document storage facility.

In today’s world where increasingly all types of data is stored on a computer including such information as patient charts and x-rays, it is more important than ever to have a computer contingency and disaster recovery plan in place for your practice.

Billing Precision, LLC, is a leading-edge chiropractic office profitability management solution. Its all-in-one Internet-based system includes accountable and transparent billing service, state-of-art touch-screen SOAP notes, advanced patient scheduling, and real-time monitoring for compliance and audit exposure. Billing Precision’s unique value stems from its ability to level the playing field with payers and get chiropractors paid in full and on time by capitalizing on modern Internet technology and billing network effect. More at http://www.chiropracticbillingprecision.com

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