Over the past year, we’ve watched fires, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes, and severe storms devastate communities and businesses.
It makes you wonder:
What if you drove to your office tomorrow morning and couldn’t go inside?
Maybe the building was severely damaged.
Maybe everything inside was gone.
Maybe the building was still standing—but your practice was unusable.
Would you know where to start?
🦷 We Think We Know What’s in Our Practices
You walk through your office every day. You know what’s in every operatory, every cabinet, every closet.
Or do you?
If you had to recreate your practice from memory, could you remember everything?
It’s not just your dental equipment. Think about:
- Computers and technology
- Furniture and cabinetry
- Instruments and supplies
- Software and patient information
- Employee and payroll information
- Insurance documents
- Vendor and service contacts
- Your lease and business records
And that’s only the beginning.
📸 Could You Prove What Was There?
Imagine standing outside a damaged practice trying to remember exactly what was inside.
Would you have current photographs?
A video walkthrough?
Model and serial numbers for your major equipment?
Receipts, warranties, and service information?
And most importantly—could you access that information if you couldn’t get into the office?
A few hours spent documenting your practice today could save an enormous amount of time and frustration later.
🏢 What About Your Insurance—and Your Lease?
When was the last time you sat down with your insurance professional and asked:
“If I had to rebuild this practice today, do I have enough coverage to put it back the way it is now?”
Your practice may be very different from the one you originally insured.
You may have added equipment, technology, cabinetry, furniture, renovations, or leasehold improvements over the years.
And if you lease your space, there’s another important question:
Who is responsible for what after a disaster—you or the landlord?
What about the roof? HVAC? Plumbing? Electrical? Structural repairs? Your dental build-out?
And how quickly is the landlord required to make the repairs you need before you can reopen?
Those are questions you want answered before something happens.
💻 “But Everything Is in the Cloud!”
Maybe. But that isn’t the whole answer.
Most practice management and imaging systems already protect or back up patient information. That’s good.
But do you know:
- Where your information is actually stored?
- Who controls the account?
- How you would access it if your computers or server were gone?
- How it would be restored to new equipment?
- Who you would call for help?
And what about payroll, employee records, financial information, insurance documents, and all the other information necessary to run the business?
Backed up and accessible are not always the same thing.
👥 Your Patients and Team Will Need Answers Too
If your practice suddenly closed tomorrow, your team and your patients would immediately have questions.
How will you contact everyone?
Who handles emergencies?
Can you forward your phones?
Can someone update your website or social media?
Do you have another dentist who could help cover emergencies?
Who contacts the insurance company? The landlord? IT?
During an emergency is not the time to decide who is responsible for what.
💜 Start Before You Need It
Emergency preparedness does not mean expecting the worst.
It means being prepared enough that, if something does happen, you can begin making decisions instead of trying to reconstruct years of information from memory.
You don’t have to do everything in one day.
Start with one room.
Take pictures.
Make a video.
Then move to the next thing.
Review it. Update it. Test it.
📋 We’ve Made It Easier to Get Started
The Pediatric Dental Team Association has created a FREE Practice Emergency & Disaster Preparedness Guide & Checklist to help you identify what your practice should have in place before an emergency occurs.
Use it to see what you’ve already done—and, more importantly, what you may have overlooked.
👉 Download the FREE Practice Emergency & Disaster Preparedness Guide & Checklist
Hopefully, you’ll never need a disaster plan.
But if you do, that will be one of the worst possible times to discover you never made one.
Dr. Rhea Haugseth has spent nearly five decades helping pediatric dental practices build exceptional teams.
As a pediatric dentist, practice owner, educator, speaker, and past President of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, she has learned that successful practices are built through confident teams, strong leadership, and proven systems—not by chance.
She is the founder of the Pediatric Dental Team Association (PDTA) and the Atlanta Pediatric Dental Assistant School (APDAS), where she continues to develop practical resources, leadership strategies, and training programs designed specifically for pediatric dental practices.
A Diplomate of the American Board of Pediatric Dentistry and past President of the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry, Dr. Haugseth continues to lecture nationally and practice pediatric dentistry, bringing real-world experience to every PDTA resource she creates.