Welcome Back
Dear Calabasas Pediatric Dental Family,
We hope this letter finds you and your family in good health. We are so excited to welcome you back to our office! 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 when it is time for your next appointment. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff. An additional measure we have taken is to have all our staff be tested and cleared of COVID-19 before returning to the office. We are happy to report that our staff are all cleared and we are ready to serve your families.
We want to inform you of some new protocols we are implementing temporarily during this time period:
1. Our office will communicate with you beforehand to ask some screening questions to make sure you are not experiencing any flu-like symptoms. You’ll be asked those same questions again when you are in the office.
2. We are limiting the number of people allowed in our office, and thus are decreasing the number of patients we can see in our office significantly when we initially re-open. We are utilizing different spaces in our office to keep patients separated appropriately. Because of this, we kindly ask that you be ON TIME for your appointment and also have patience with us when scheduling your appointments.
3. We are trying to eliminate having anyone wait in our waiting room, unless accompanying a minor who needs to be accompanied. We will ask that you CALL the office (818)222-4543 to let us know you have arrived. We will inform you to come up if the dental chair is ready. If it is not, we will text you back as soon as it is.
4. Please brush and floss PRIOR to coming to your appointment as our tooth brushing station has been converted into a handwashing station for now. Please do not eat prior to the appointment as our tooth brushing station is closed.
5. We require you wear your own mask/face covering into our building and clinic and will ask you to remove the mask when sitting in the dental chair and are ready to work on you. We want to minimize any potential contamination of other surfaces in the office.
6. We are asking that ONLY ONE parent accompany their child/children to their dental visits for now. For teenage patients, we are encouraging parents to wait in the car for them, and we can call you when the appointment is over to give you an update and schedule the following appointment. If you feel more comfortable coming in, we kindly ask that you use the hand sanitizer provided, wait in our waiting room, and have a mask on at all times and practice social distancing with others.
7. For anyone entering the clinic, we will be taking their temperature with a non contact thermometer. We also want to make sure that you haven’t had any flu like symptoms in the past 14 days. If you develop symptoms prior to your appointment, please let us know right away. If you have been exposed to anyone who has Covid-19 in the last week, please let us know that as well. We are happy to reschedule if needed.
8. We will ask all patients and parents to use the hand sanitizer in the reception area when they enter the office
9. For some procedures, we may have patients rinse with a hydrogen peroxide rinse for 60 seconds prior to working on them. For children who cannot rinse, we may swab their teeth and gums with a hydrogen peroxide rinse. (Non-fluoridated)
10. 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.
11. We also will be disinfecting high contact surfaces such as the check-in counters, door handles, waiting room chairs, etc. every hour during the day.
12. Personal Protective Equipment: As usual, we are utilizing universal precautions with all patients to prevent transmission of infectious diseases. The personal protective equipment our team will be using are: surgical masks, shields, disposable hair nets and gowns, and of course gloves. Your safety and our team’s safety are of utmost important to all of us! We appreciate your patience, understanding and cooperation with all of this. If you have any questions regarding our protocols or your treatment, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us anytime. Thank you so much!
Sincerely,
Calabasas Pediatric Dentistry & Pair Orthodontics