WHAT WE ARE DOING TO PROTECT STAFF AND PATIENTS FROM COVID19

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WHAT CHANGES IN ROUTINE TO EXPECT WHEN YOU ARRIVE FOR YOUR VISIT

Our office has always adhered to the highest standards of cleanliness and sterility. Infection control has always been and will always be a top priority. 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 update ourselves continuously so that the products we use and procedures we employ are current and adhere to each agency’s recommendations.

As always, every instrument is sterilized in an autoclave before each use, any item that is single-use is discarded after its use and every surface (including the dental chair) is wiped down with a disinfectant in-between patients. We have increased the frequency of cleaning high-traffic areas and high-touch surfaces, such as the reception room, restrooms and door handles. We have also installed high-capacity air purifiers, equipped with true HEPA filters and internal UV light components, in each treatment room and elsewhere throughout the office. Glass- paned doors on the treatment rooms are closed during treatment, in order to boost the efficiency of the air purifiers even further.

We employ the use of a ULV cold fogger to disperse a fine mist of disinfectant into the air of the dental operatories after every single patient and into other rooms in the office repeatedly throughout the day. The disinfectant with which we fog is hypochlorous acid. Hypochlorous acid, HOCl, is non-toxic and completely safe for humans and animals, yet it is effective against a broad range of pathogens. It kills bacteria, fungi, mold and viruses. HOCl has been demonstrated to inactivate a variety of viruses, including coronaviruses, in less than one minute.

Acrylic sneeze barriers have been installed at the front desk. Bottles of alcohol-based hand sanitizer are available throughout the office, and you are also welcome to wash your hands here with soap and water. You will notice that our team members will be wearing additional PPE.

In pursuit of social distancing, we have arranged for our mail and other deliveries to be made to our back door. In that same spirit, we are making every effort to manage patient flow and minimize unnecessary time spent in the office. To that end, we ask that you arrive promptly for your appointment and that when you arrive, you call us from the car before entering. We will then ask you a series of COVID19 screening questions. We ask that you come to the office unaccompanied, unless an essential companion/caregiver/parent/guardian needs to be present. Please wear a mask or face covering when you enter. If you’ve forgotten a mask, we will provide one. Please use our hand sanitizer when you enter. Your temperature will be taken using our infrared thermal forehead scanning thermometer. You will be ushered into your treatment room, given a mouthwash and asked to do two 30-second pre-procedural rinses. Then we will get on with your checkup or dentistry!

You may notice that we no longer offer books and magazines in our reception room. Also, we are transitioning to paperless patient charts. This means we need each and every patient to visit our “Forms” page on this website and download the “welcome”, “health history”, “authorization”, “acknowledgement” and, if applicable, the “insurance authorization” documents. The appropriate packet of forms can be accessed by clicking on the line entitled “New* Patients 10 years and under” or “New* Patients 11 to Adult”. (*All patients will be treated as “new” for the first visit back to the office after our re-opening on June 1, 2020.) Please thoroughly fill out those forms and present them to our front desk team member at your first visit back in the office after our re-opening. They will be scanned into your record, thereby allowing us to keep paper out of the treatment rooms and to reduce our overall use of paper in the future. Please make sure to provide us with your current email address and phone numbers.

Thank you for your cooperation and patience with these new protocols. We are committed to your health, safety and comfort. Please feel free to contact us via phone or email with any questions you may have. STAY SAFE!