Slow the Spread

We hope this letter finds you and your family in good health. Our community has been through a lot over the last few months, and all of us are looking forward to resuming our normal habits and routines. While many things have changed, one thing has remained the same: our commitment to your safety.

Infection control has always been a top priority for our practice and you may have seen this during your visits to our office. Our infection control processes are made so that when you receive care, it’s both safe and comfortable. We want to tell you about the infection control procedures we follow in our practice to keep patients and staff safe.

Our office follows 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 follow the activities of these agencies so that we are up-to-date on any new rulings or guidance that may be issued. We do this to make sure that our infection control procedures are current and adhere to each agencies’ recommendations.

You may see some changes during your appointment. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff. For example:

• Our office will communicate with you beforehand to ask some screening questions. You’ll be asked those same questions again when you are in the office.
• Upon arrival patients will be greeted by our office personnel. We ask only the patient enter the office, all others are asked to wait in their cars or outside during the appointment. If you have concerns about your child, we can make arrangements for one parent to accompany their child.
  1. Temperature will be taken. Under 100 degrees is okay, if over then we will reschedule. For those traveling long distances, you may want to check their temperature before coming to the appointment.
  2. Patients will be given hand sanitizer
  3. At this time, we will give an oral rinse to the patient consisting of 1.5% hydrogen peroxide and directed to a restroom.
  4. The patient will be asked to rinse with this solution for 20 seconds and also asked to wash their hands at this time.
• You may see that our waiting room will no longer offer magazines, children’s toys and so forth, since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect. The tooth brush station will no longer be available. We ask that you brush before your appointment.
• Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients. That might mean that you’re offered fewer options for scheduling your appointment.
• 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 people in the reception area at any one time.

We look forward to seeing you again and are happy to answer any questions you may have about the steps we take to keep you, and every patient, safe in our practice.

Thank you for being our patient. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming back our patients, neighbors and friends.

Sincerely,