Planning for All Scenarios: What to Do During Technology Disruptions

The recent CrowdStrike outage demonstrated just how detrimental losing access to your practice tech can be when carrying out business operations. In a perfect world, an outage would never happen, but sometimes circumstances are outside of our control. Luckily, Eyefinity Practice Management has an average uptime rate of 99.9%, however, it’s never a bad idea to have a contingency plan. This blog outlines what resources you need, troubleshooting tips, and your plan of action so that your practice will be prepared for anything that comes your way. 

Gather Your Resources 

While using paper isn’t convenient for everyday operations, having copies of crucial documents is important during an outage. We recommend having a copy of all your important forms in a binder that’s ready to go, including information on how your staff should proceed. You’ll want to list any phone numbers for IT support, service providers, and software support contact information as well as any links to online help centers so your team knows who to contact for what. 

When making paper copies of your forms, it’s important to have a master copy (your copy to make copies from) and enough for your practice to use for at least one full day.  

We recommend having copies of: 

• Consent forms 
• Waivers 
• Blank exams 
• Invoices 
• Prescription pads 

The American Optometric Association has options for forms you can print yourself and others you can order physical copies of. For Eyefinity users, you’ll want to make sure that the paper forms match what you have in Eyefinity Practice Management and/or Eyefinity EHR so that adding the records is as simple as possible.  

In addition to having copies of the forms above, we also recommend having: 

• Information and benefits of your top 10 accepted insurance plans 
• A tax rates sheet for each practice location 
• Optical pricing sheets 
• Credit card forms or a receipt pad to capture payment information  

Once you have all this information gathered, store it in an easy-to-access location and brief your staff on any processes.  

Troubleshoot What You Can 

Depending on the type of outage your practice is experiencing, there may be a way to troubleshoot the issue. This isn’t a catch-all list, but these tips may help you find a quick solution while waiting for the outage to be resolved: 

Internet Outage 

You may be able to connect to a hotspot using a mobile phone. Depending on how many devices you need to support this connection, you'll want to have a few hotspots ready to use and have chargers on hand so that the phones don’t run out of battery.  

Power Outage 

In addition to any emergency preparedness steps needed for a power outage, having paper copies as suggested above can help your practice carry on if your printer is unavailable.  

Unable to Access Eyefinity Practice Management/Eyefinity EHR 

Check your desktop or tablet's health by clearing your cache and verify your internet browser is up to date. System requirements help keep your solution secure, compliant, and easily accessible so make sure you meet the requirements outlined here.

Other IT Outage 

Of course, sometimes the unpredictable happens, like the recent CrowdStrike-Microsoft incident. In a similar case, you can check the news for updates, including any additional resources for troubleshooting.  

Follow Your Outage Plan 

Once you’ve completed the troubleshooting steps above, here’s what to do next: 

1. Locate the binder of forms you have prepared and distribute them accordingly  
2. Chart exams and collect consent forms using paper 
3. Manually add prescriptions and charges to your POS system or collect them as needed to enter later. 
4. If you regain access in the same day, doctors can enter exam information in the system. 
5. If you're unable to access the system during the same day, scan paper charts into the patient’s file when you’re able.  

If you’re unable to process orders or sales, you’ll want to: 

1. Reference pricing sheets and record order information 
2. Capture payment information using a credit card form or call patients to collect payment information later 
3. Manually complete orders with saved information once processing becomes available  

Prepare for the Future 

Once an outage is over, everyone is ready to go back to business as usual. However, you’ll want to check in on a few things first: 

Did any challenges arise during the outage that need to be addressed? 

If yes, you’ll want to make any updates to your contacts, instructions, or resources available.  

Does anything need to be replenished in your binder? 

If you used any paper forms, be sure to make as many copies as needed to replenish what was used.  

Did everything get put back where it goes? 

As you rush to return to your regular procedures, take a moment to make sure all your outage preparation resources make it back to the place you’ve chosen to store them.  

Although simple, we recommend taking the time to make sure you’ve addressed the questions above before moving forward.