What to Expect for your appointment
Beginning May 18th, we will resume our hygiene program. We have added some additional days and hours as well as extending lengths of appointments to help accommodate patients who have been delayed due to COVID 19 closure.
We hope you and your family are in good health. It has been strange times indeed. Our community has been through a lot over the past couple of 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 health and 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 that we follow in our practice to keep patients and staff members safe.
Our office follows infection control recommendations made by the American Dental Association (ADA), the US 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 are in accordance to each agencies’ recommendations.
As a result, we have given a lot of thought about how to go above and beyond guidelines to improve your experience. During our 7 weeks of closure we were learning more about Coronavirus from various agencies and determining how to implement changes to improve delivery of care and safety.
You may notice some changes and additional faces when it is time for your next appointment. We made these changes to help protect our patients and team members as we all ease into our new normal. For example:
- Our office will communicate with you beforehand to ask some screening questions. You’ll be asked to answer those same questions when you are at the office.
- You will be screened at the door and your temperature will be taken when you come in for your appointment. We will only have one person enter at a time for screening.
- You will notice less seating in the reception area and may be asked to wait outside or in the air-conditioned hallway for social distancing.
- We request all individuals coming into the office to wear their own face mask and wear it while in reception area and restrooms; you will not need to wear it the treatment area.
Please note that we do not provide masks to patients as our PPE is limited.
- There will be hand sanitizer that we will ask you to use when you come into the office and when you leave.
- We may have you wear our disposable gloves while in the office that you will be asked to remove upon departure to minimize touch surfaces.
- Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing. This may mean fewer options for scheduling your appointments. We are allowing a greater amount of time between appointments to reduce waiting times and to allow for additional sanitizing of the rooms. To help with this we will initially be extending our office hours to allow for specific procedures and specific times for our most vulnerable patients.
- We ask that you come alone unless the appointment is for a minor (then only one parent or legal guardian) or if you need special assistance to reduce the number of people in the reception area at any one time. If you require transportation assistance, we ask that your driver wait in the car or run errands and be available by cell phone to pick you up when your appointment is completed. We will be able to estimate the amount of time for most appointments. All persons entering our office will need to be screened and wear a mask.
- We are trying to collect payment for co-payments prior to appointments and in the treatment room if treatment plan is uncertain at time of appointment to reduce the congestion at checkout and allow for improved social distancing. Please call or email us ahead of time if any financial arrangements are required.
- You will notice that our hygienists are hand scaling more and not using the ultrasonic cleaners as much to reduce aerosol in the office.
- In addition to our normal scrubs, you may notice our employees are wearing additional PPE such as gowns, masks and for certain procedures, face shields.
- All of our employees are tested for the COVID-19 antibody prior to returning from leave and are monitored for any signs of illness. They will be screened daily just like our patients.
It is important that we stay focused on safety and move forward together as a community and recognize that this virus doesn’t treat everyone equally. While the instinct is to cheer that we can go back to work, we respect that we have all sacrificed to get here and we are going to move forward cautiously, methodically, and in all of our best interest. We are moving forward as allowed by government regulations but also with care and science.
We look forward to seeing you 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.
To make an appointment, please call our office at 480.836.7600 or if you have any specific concerns pertaining to your health or upcoming appointment, you can email us at appts@lovingfamilydental.com.