How to Save 30 Minutes a Day in Your Dental Office

Your patient data is a valuable asset to your practice. To protect this asset, you back up your data every day.

However, manual backup processes take time, at least 30 minutes per day. If you use magnetic tape, USB drives, DVDs or external hard drives as backup media, it takes additional time to store and rotate your backups, plus the time it takes to transport the backups to a remote location for storage.

The Value of 30 Minutes

What’s 30 minutes out of your day worth? That depends on who is backing up your data. A dental office manager makes around $20 per hour, $10 per 30 minutes. The average salary for a dentist is about $142,428 per year. Assuming 1,600 hours worked in a year, a dentist makes $89 per hour, $44.50 per 30 minutes.

Of course, salary figures don’t show the real cost of spending 30 minutes on backups each day. The actual value of those minutes is the amount of income your practice can generate in that time.

For example, the net income generated by a general dentist, one-doctor practice in 2013 was $491,524. Divided by 1,600 hours, the average practice generated about $307 per hour, $153.50 per 30 minutes.

Unless your practice can afford to lose $153 of net income every day, it’s time to consider automated data backup.

The Benefits of Online Backup

An online, automated backup solution not only saves you those 30 minutes a day, it also provides you peace of mind. Manual backup media are subject to human error and improper storage. Your data is vulnerable to hazards like fire, natural disasters, power surges and theft.

Online backup stores data in the cloud, where it is monitored by a data center technician. In addition, your files are compressed up to 99 percent, saving on storage costs.

With online backup, you decide which files you want to back up and how often. Once that decision is made, you don’t have to worry about backups again. If you use cloud-based practice management software, automatic backups happen every time you make a change to a patient file.

Online backup is more cost effective than manual backup. You don’t have to own or maintain any of the hardware or software associated with backup storage. No more rotating tapes or labeling thumb drives, either.

In case of a power outage or other disaster at your office, your data can be restored quickly from the cloud. You don’t have to wait for additional equipment or a support technician to access your patient data.

If you need to back up multiple devices at multiple sites, online backup is the ideal solution. Any connected device can be backed up to the cloud without anyone traveling from server to server, or workstation to workstation, to back up each office.

The time and cost savings—plus the peace of mind knowing your files are always available—make online backup an attractive and worry-free solution for your dental practice.