Your Appointment
You will see some changes when it is time for your next appointment at our office! These precautions will help us ensure the protect our patients and staff. We appreciate your cooperation, and look forward to providing you the safest dental care experience possible.
- We will reach out to you before your appointment to ask some pre-screening health questions. Our form is a fillable online form that is HIPAA compliant. If you are unable to pre-screen online, we will be calling you prior to your appointment to pre-screen you over the phone. You’ll be asked those same questions again when you arrive at the office. Download Pre-Screen Form
- We will ask you to wait in your vehicle and call us when you arrive for your appointment. A team member will escort you in the building to aid in the check-in process. We will digitally register you and update medical history include pre-screen questionnaire..
- We ask that you wear as mask or face covering of some kind to keep us safe. Our masks protect you, your mask will protect our team.
- We will take temperature of all staff and patients before they enter the office as a precaution. If any staff or patient reads 100.4 degrees F, or higher their appointment will be rescheduled and they will be sent home.
- We have hand sanitizer that you will need to use when you enter the office. Sanitizer will be available in additional locations around office for you to use as needed.
- Our reception area will no longer offer magazines, children’s toys and so forth, since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect. There will also be limited seating in the reception area and will be spaced appropriately for social distancing.
- Families will no longer be allowed to come in together. Any children under 18 can be escorted in by one adult. If a parent decides to stay in the clinical treatment room with their child, they will be required to wear a surgical mask, safety goggles and gloves provided by our office.
- We will be encouraging all patients to pay online. We can dramatically reduce risk by doing that digitally. (link to online payment portal here). We will have a process to accept payment in office if you are unable to pay online. Debit/Credit cards are preferred in office as it keeps our staff the safest, but we will have a specific protocol to handle check and cash payments. We would appreciate your patience and understanding of these new protocols as they are for your safety and our team’s safety and to limit the spread of COVID 19.
- Appointments will be staggered to allow for social distancing between patients.
- We will do our best to allow greater time between patients to reduce waiting times for you, as well as to reduce the number of patients in the office at any one time.
- We are changing our hours of operation to accommodate new working schedules for our team in order to limit the amount of people that are in our office at one time. We will be extending day hours and will be adding Saturday hours as well. Please check back often on our website and Facebook to see when we officially change our days and hours of operation as specific times have not been fully decided yet.
- Until there is a working vaccine, or the science behind controlling the spread of COVID 19 improves, we will continue to implement these measures to keep our team and patients safe. We appreciate your patience we ask that you be flexible with appointment availability and scheduling during this time.
Infection Control Methods and Precautions
While many things have changed for us, one thing remains the same: our commitment to your safety. Infection control has always been a top priority in our practice. Our infection control protocols and systems are designed to provide dental care that is safe, efficient, and comfortable.
In our practice we follow infection control recommendations made by the American Dental Association (ADA), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). We regularly monitor activities of these agencies and keep up-to-date on all new rulings or guidance that may be issued. The infection control procedures in our office are current and adhere to each of these safety recommendations.
- We have incorporated Covid-19 standard PPE into our clinical systems and protocols including N95 masks, surgical masks, face shields, gloves and smocks, and scrubs all laundered on site.
- We have invested in an air purifying system to dramatically reduce aerosol in the reception and front office area
- We have invested in extra-oral evacuation (suction) systems to use during extended aerosol producing procedures
- Hygienists will only be using their ultrasonic scalers for periodontal therapy appointments and will utilize hand scaling only during regular cleanings to reduce the amount of aerosol in the clinical area.
- We will be doing any extended aerosol producing procedures at end of day
- We will be implementing hours for “at risk” patients to reduce the amount of aerosol exposure to immune compromised patients, seniors, patients with lung conditions. We will notify these patients of these hours and will update our website and Facebook when these specific times are decided.
- Rubber Dams and extra intra-oral suction techniques will be used more routinely to decrease aerosols in order to keep you and our team members safe.
- We will be alternating rooms between patients and working every other room to the best of our ability as to properly space patients.
- We have always utilized state of the art medical grade sterilization equipment and protocols.
- One time use protocols and complete disinfection of treatment rooms between each patient are standard in our office.
We are grateful to have you as a patient in our practice. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to establishing a new normal in our practice. The CDC actually recognized the infection controls methods in a dental office actually make it safer than many of the places you might visit like a store, pharmacy, or restaurant for take-out pick up. If you have any questions or concerns please ask us in the office when you are here, or give us a call any time at 207-839-6266.