Hello again to our family, friends and patients!
We hope this message finds you and your families in good health! It has been a long stretch of time since we last communicated, but as you know, our community has been through a lot over these last few months. All of us are looking forward to resuming our normal habits and routines. We can assure you, we are working diligently to figure out what the “new normal” in our office is going to look like. Dentistry as we know it is going to look and feel very different than it has in the past. And while many things have changed, one thing has remained the same: our commitment to patient and staff safety.
As you may know, Governor Inslee’s original proclamation limited dental care to emergency dental treatment until May 19th. However, with the recent extension of his stay at home order through May 31st, we are taking a more phased approach when starting to deliver treatment again and are waiting for further guidance from the Washington Dental Association, the American Dental Association, and the Governor’s office as things could still change.
IMPORTANT! If you had an appointment in March, April or May and we had to cancel that appointment due to the Governor’s order, Please get in touch with us to get on a list to be re-scheduled. We have several hundred patients to consider, but we understand that not everyone will want to come in for their cleanings or other procedures due to this virus and may choose to wait. It will be extremely helpful for you to let us know that you do want to secure an appointment on the schedule as we will be managing a list of patients and we will do our best to accommodate you, but appreciate some flexibility. Alternatively, if you are currently scheduled for an appointment in the coming weeks/months and start seeing reminders for those appointments, but would rather wait, please let us know ASAP so we can reserve your appointment for another patient.
To make a request, you can use one of the following options:
Call our office at (425) 885-5529 and leave a message
Send us a text through our automated system
Send us an email
Use the Request Appointment button on our website to fill out an appointment request form.
In the meantime, we also wanted to communicate some of the new protocols we are putting in place to help protect our patients and staff:
We may choose to see patients who are considered lower risk at first. Therefore, we may ask our higher risk patients or anyone currently quarantined with a higher risk family member to reschedule their appointment to a later date
Our office will communicate with you beforehand to ask some screening questions. You will be asked those same questions again when you are in the office at the time of your appointment. See screening questions
We have hand sanitizer that we will ask you to use when you enter the office. You will also find some in the reception area and other places in the office for you to use as needed.
We will be taking the temperatures of our staff daily and will also be taking your temperature when you come in for your appointment.
You may see that our waiting room will no longer offer magazines since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect.
Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients and we may choose to see only one patient at a time – especially for any aerosol generating procedures. That might mean that you are offered fewer options for scheduling your appointment. Please be flexible.
Colleen (our front office manager) may continue to work remotely to manage scheduling, billing, payments, etc. as this helps minimize the number of people in the office at one time. She will be available to contact via phone, email or text if you have any questions regarding your appointment or have insurance or billing questions.
We may continue to triage emergencies remotely to determine if you need to come into our office or if it is better for you to see a specialist to avoid your exposure to multiple office environments.
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 reception area at any one time. For example, you may be asked to wait in your car and we will call you up when we are ready for you.
We hope all of these changes will make you feel safer in coming to our office and we look forward to seeing you again and are happy to answer any questions you may have about the steps we are taking to keep you, and our staff, safe in our practice.
We greatly appreciate your patience and cooperation during this unprecedented time. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming back our patients, neighbors and friends.
Sincerely,
Dr. Dillon, Colleen and Staff
Opmerkingen