What Equipment Failure Could Cost You

 

Your training and experience are vital to the success of your practice. But, if something happened to your tools or office, would you still be able to practice? Damage caused by a fire, theft or weather-related incidents are generally covered by your property insurance, these are not the only risks you face.

• What would happen to your practice if your air conditioning goes out in the summer?
• What if an electrical surge damages your instruments or causes a prolonged power outage?

Have you considered the true cost of what an equipment breakdown would mean to your practice?  When dealing with equipment breakdown issues, you need to consider all ramifications of the breakdown.

• For example, if your air conditioning stops working. The obvious thought is that you will need to pay a repair person to come out and fix or replace it. However, the financial impact of this event goes well beyond the bill from the HVAC company.
  
  • If the weather is warm, you will probably not be able to see patients until it is fixed. The repair company may take several days to see and diagnose the problem. Once the repair person diagnoses the problem, a part may need to be ordered.
  • If temporarily closing your practice is not an option, you will need to rent equipment to stay open. Recently, a senior citizen’s apartment building spent over $100,000 to repair their air conditioning when it went out during the summer. They rented spot-coolers until the repairs were completed and paid the overtime necessary to get the air conditioner back online as soon as possible. These types of expenses would not be covered under most property policies.

Another area equipment breakdown affects is electricity and power surges. The use of surge protectors for computer equipment is common. Your computer is not the only equipment in your office vulnerable to damage from electrical surges or prolonged outages.

• Have you considered the expense of replacing your dental instruments if they are damaged by a power surge?
• If you have any products that need refrigeration, do you have a backup plan to store them if you lose power? How expensive would it be to replace these items if power was lost over the weekend and not discovered until Monday?
• Even if you have protected yourself inside your office, a power surge can cause arcing in the main electrical panel. This may not only damage the panel but can also damage the entire electrical system within your office. This would not only cause you to be without power, but other systems, such as your phones, computers and all other electrical equipment   are affected, and useless until it can be fixed. If this happened at your practice, you would be at the mercy of the repair company. Your practice would not be able to function until the panel and any damaged wiring was fixed and/or replaced. Unlike the air conditioner scenario, there may not be any temporary fixes to keep your practice running in this situation.

As you can imagine, the situations outlined here can happen without warning and are not covered by your property insurance in many cases. Do you know if your insurance covers these items?