subject: Your Disaster Recovery Plan Should Be In Place Ahead Of Time [print this page] Every medical office should have a disaster recovery plan in place for emergencies. This includes a plan for backing up medical documents, as well as a plan for protecting patient privacy. Your answering service should also be able to operate in the event of an emergency. This is something that you should discuss with them on a regular basis. By being prepared ahead of time, you can ensure that your practice and your patients are protected during an emergency.
While it can be difficult to determine what type of disaster plan an answering service should have in place, there are a few expectations that are vital to keeping your business running. Your patients will need access to a live person for the full amount of time that you've contracted for. A professional service will not only have backup facilities available to operate in the event of an emergency, but will have access to facilities in other areas if needed.
The disaster recovery plan for a medical office is more extensive and should involve various ways to back up paper medical files. Physicians could start the process early by scanning paper documents into the computer systems and backing them up overnight. This will ensure that if the facility is destroyed, sensitive documents will remain digitally intact and available when the practice is ready to operate again. The simplest way to perform this task is by saving your documents on an online server. This is also referred to as a cloud. Many physician offices have turned to the internet to safely secure medical information.
Insurance documents and other payment related information should also be covered in a disaster plan. This means that vouchers and other paperwork from third parties should either be saved electronically, or copied and stored in a facility off-site. Insurance financial records should be kept for seven years, so it may be best to do this electronically, as seven years worth of financial records could take up quite a bit of space.
The disaster recovery plan in place by your answering service should be sufficient enough to continue offering basic service throughout an emergency. Your practice disaster plan should secure your patients sensitive information, and allow you to be able to access this data at a moments notice. By preparing ahead of time, your facility can be prepared to offer operate in its normal fashion soon after an emergency.
