Module 1 – Prevention and preparedness | Business continuity
Information preservation
You will need to document information recovery procedures to preserve access to your practice data. In the event of a disaster, this will ensure you can respond as soon as possible to minimise potential loss or corruption of information.
An effective business continuity and information recovery plan brings your practice information systems back to working order when a system failure occurs. Ideally, your plan should detail how to maintain critical business functions when there is an unexpected system event. Creating a business continuity plan can be complex. You may need to collaborate with your IT provider to develop a simple and easy to implement plan.
Take action
When working with your IT provider to develop your business continuity and information preservation plan:
- identify the functions and resources required to operate your practice at a minimum acceptable level without functional computers,
- provide training for your practice team and have written guidance on:
- how your systems will be managed ‘manually’,
- which information needs to be collected for re-entering after recovery,
- how to revert to a paper-based system, and
- basic practice systems such as:
- enabling clinical team members to provide adequate clinical care while not having access to electronic health records,
- appointment scheduling,
- billing,
- issuing of prescriptions,
- business financial operations (e.g. payroll, Medicare claims),
- payroll processing, and
- financial reconciliations.
If you are using cloud-based services, you will need to consider this when creating your plan. You could:
- document an internet failover plan, including setting up multiple internet connections with different service providers,
- establish manual workarounds, if possible, for when your business and clinical applications cannot be accessed,
- document migration plans to accommodate a sudden change of cloud provider,
- document key contacts for your cloud service provider including the support desk, account manager, and the address of any websites that display service status.
Business.gov.au offer a downloadable emergency management plan template on their webpage. This template is generic and will need to be altered to suit your practice’s needs.
Business continuity and information recovery plans should be reviewed, updated and tested periodically. This includes when there is a technology or procedure change in your practice, or when there are any changes to relevant legislative requirements.
Further guidance on information business continuity and information preservation can be found in the RACGP’s Information security in general practice resource.
Financial planning
Major emergencies or disasters can affect practices for anywhere between a few days to months. The impacts of these affected periods, long or short, can be devastating to practices that are not financially prepared.
In some cases, practices have to close until appropriate repairs have been completed following a natural disaster. Of course, closing a practice will result in a significant loss of earnings, as demonstrated below.
To be prepared, you will need to consider and regularly review the financial implications of your practice closing or operating at lower capacity over an extended period.
It is essential to have building, contents and business insurance. In the face of climate change, insurance policies are changing rapidly. To ensure adequate coverage, regularly review your practice's insurance policies.
To ensure adequate coverage, your policy should ideally cover:
- all natural and man-made disasters,
- extensive damage and total loss of the building,
- the entire contents of the building, including loss and damage to medical equipment and supplies,
- costs associated with interruption to the business (may include team member pay and loss of revenue) – this may trigger a higher premium, and
- costs associated with relocating to a temporary practice – this may trigger a higher premium.
Keep a hard copy (or copies) of key information about your insurance policy (or policies) such as the name of the insurer, policy number, type of insurance coverage and relevant contact details off-site in the event of damage to your practice.
Visit ‘Lodging an insurance claim’ to find out about insurance claim processes.
Self-insurance
Self-insurance is the term used to describe the business strategy whereby a company assumes the financial risk of its own losses as an alternative to paying premiums to an insurance company.
Self-insured companies set aside funds to cover potential losses. They may also purchase excess insurance to cover catastrophic losses.
While being self-insured means that you can design your own insurance plans to meet your specific needs, it is not always the right choice and will not be an option for all practices. Each state and territory have various criteria you must meet to become self-insured.
To find out more and to understand whether self-insurance is appropriate for your practice, speak to an insurance broker of your choice.
An emergency fund is money your practice sets aside to cover urgent or unexpected costs. Having an emergency fund is an important part of managing your business finances and could mean the difference between staying operational or closing in the face of an unexpected event.
Exactly how much you will need in your emergency fund depends on a variety of factors, such as the size of your practice, how many team members you have and what type of services you offer. Despite these varying factors, it’s important to take the following into account when calculating how much will be needed in your fund:
- Do you have enough money set aside to cover team member entitlements? (i.e. long service leave, holiday pay, reimbursing team members needing to be stood down)
- Do you have enough money set aside to fund general building repairs?
Federal and state governments provide information and assistance to businesses in disaster declared areas as part of the Disaster Recovery Funding Arrangements (DRFA). The types of assistance Federal and State Governments provide varies but may include business and individual grants, loans for small business and personalised Business Concierge support.
Select your state or territory below to find out what types of assistance are available to you.
For further information on Federal and State government support, visit Services Australia’s webpage.
Take action
- Check your insurance polices to ensure you are adequately covered in the event of a disaster or emergency. Make note of where your policy details are kept within your emergency response plan.
- If you don't already have an emergency fund in place, start by setting aside a minimum of one month’s worth of expenses. Ideally, you will build this fund up to be able to cover anywhere between 3-6-months’ worth of expenses.
- Your practice’s accountant or bookkeeper will be able to help you to understand how much money you should be setting aside.
- You can also speak to a business advisor to seek low-cost financial advice. Business.gov.au offer a to help small businesses connect with the right business expert for them.
- For further information regarding Federal and State government support, visit Services Australia’s webpage.
Alternate work locations
Disasters can cause significant damage to a building’s infrastructure, causing it to be uninhabitable and unsafe. If your practice’s infrastructure becomes damaged, it may be necessary to move part or all of the operational activities of the practice to a temporary location. Alternatively, you may be able to offer telehealth appointments to supplement or replace in-person consultations.
Consider how you will continue to provide essential services if you practice infrastructure is affected.
If it is determined that your practice must temporarily relocate, an appropriate and safe location will need to be identified. To facilitate this process, you are encouraged to enter discussions with other business owners who could potentially allow a temporary clinic to be set up in their building. Possible venues could include:
- community halls,
- schools,
- vacant shop,
- co-location with other primary health providers (see below), or
- co-location with local government, community or aged care services.
These discussions need to occur, and locations need to be confirmed, before an event takes place. If an agreement is made, it should be documented in your emergency response plan and communicated to both parties in writing.
Your practice team needs to be made aware of any arrangements made. If your practice is affected by an event and your emergency response plan is activated, your team can begin making appropriate arrangements to inform patients of the temporary location.
You are encouraged to contact other practices in your area and agree on how you can offer mutual support. For example:
- If your practice or another practice in your area is affected by an emergency or disaster and needs to close, you can have a plan in place to direct your patients to a nearby operational practice until the risk has been averted.
- If your or another practice is in operation but is low on available team members, any available team members from nearby practices may be able to temporarily assist.
- If a nearby practice has become overwhelmed with patient presentations, you may be able to take on certain patients and vice versa.
Building relationships with nearby practices will also mean that you have people that you can relate to that you can debrief with, receive moral support from and share helpful tips and tricks with.
Your local Primary Health Network may be able to assist with connecting you to other practices and allied health providers.
GPs can seek clarification from Medicare Australia that they are able to use the same provider number within any temporary alternate work locations, or if a temporary provider number will be provided to them. They may also seek endorsement from their Medical Defence Organisation (MDO) to ensure that they are adequately covered.
Patients in areas affected by natural disaster are exempt from the existing relationship requirement for telehealth (commonly referred to as the ‘’). This means that patients don’t need to have had a face-to-face consultation with a GP in the last 12 months to access MBS subsidised telehealth services.
A person is exempt from the ‘12-month rule’ if, at the time of accessing a telehealth service, they are living in a local government area that is declared by a State or Territory Government to be a natural disaster area.
Further information can be found on the .
Take action
Consider how you will continue to provide essential services if your practice’s infrastructure is affected.
- Contact businesses and/or venues that your practice could temporarily co-locate with.
- Contact local practices to discuss how you can offer mutual support in an emergency. Your PHN may be able to assist in connecting you with practices and allied health providers.
- GPs can contact Medicare to confirm rules regarding provider numbers in temporary alternate locations and contact their Medical Defence Organisation to ensure they are adequately covered for such scenarios.
Any arrangements made with businesses, venue owners or other practices need to be documented in your emergency response plan. An example of how you may present this information in your plan can be found below.
Ensure all involved parties have written confirmations of the arrangement. Make your team aware of any arrangements in place.
Example:
|
Alternative work locations
|
|
Location name and address
|
|
|
Contact details
|
|
|
Agreement details [Keep this brief – simple dot points are ideal]
|
|
|
Services we can continue to perform at the new location
|
|
|
Items we need to bring to the location to continue operating efficiently
|
|