Dear Friends, Family, and Patients,
We hope this letter finds you and your family in good health. We are excited to welcome you back as we are entering into the initial phase of re-opening Seattle Specialty Dentistry for your dental care starting Tuesday May 19th.
These past few months have been stressful for all of us. While we are encouraged to see the positive outcome from social distancing to flatten the curve, we know that we have to elevate to the new standard of care which involve extensive precautionary measures to help keep you and our staff safe. Together, we will re-define a safe and comfortable dental experience so we appreciate your patience as we comply with or exceed all the new State and Federal guidelines and requirements. While we have been through whirlwind of changes in the past few months, our commitment to your safety remains the same.
Below is what we will request from you in your next visit in order to reduce your contacts and exposure:
- Health-Screening Questions: You will be contacted 48-72 hours prior to your appointment via phone, text, or email and asked a set of health-screening questions. We will have to reschedule your appointment if we are unable to complete this step. We will also record your temperature and re-evaluate upon arrival.
- Arrival Procedure: Please send us text message or call our main number (206.682.3383) when you arrive and we will text or call to let you know when we are ready. This will reduce your wait time in the reception area.
- Companion: Please come to your appointment alone unless assistance is required. This is an effort to reduce traffic to the office.
- Face Mask: We will be wearing protective face masks. We kindly ask that you wear protective face mask throughout your visit except when asked to remove.
- Payments: We may contact you ahead of the appointment for payment arrangements to avoid delay and allow contactless exit from the appointment. Touchless / Apple Pay / Android Pay are being enabled at our office as well.
- IMPORTANT: to prevent fraud, please only provide the payment when you call or are contacted from our main office number (206.682.3383) or use online payment form on our website.
- Pre-Treatment Procedures: We will request you to wash your hands and use oral rinse prior to the treatment to reduce exposure to germs.
- Rescheduling: Most importantly, if you are experiencing symptoms (fever over 100.4 F, shortness of breath, dry coughing, runny nose, or sore throat), have traveled, are currently quarantined from exposure, or are awaiting a COVID-19 test result, we ask you to please reschedule your appointment forward at least 3 weeks for re-evaluation.
To deter the spread of COVID-19, we are required to implement and provide strict PPE (Personal Protective Equipment), protection barriers, and well defined safe self-distancing markers and screening processes for you and our staff. We have been working diligently to meet and exceed these guidelines. Here are the changes you will notice to ensure your safety.
- Propping doors open to reduce your need to handle doorknob.
- Installed sneeze guards at reception areas.
- Separating clean vs used pens.
- Pausing magazines, snack, and coffee offering.
- Providing touchless hand sanitizer dispensers throughout the office.
- Reducing the number of chairs at waiting area to 3 to reach 6-ft distance.
- Running HEPA-13 (medical grade) air filtration system continuously in treatment rooms and reception areas to help remove germs from circulating air.
- Extending each appointment to allow for enhanced operatory disinfection of surfaces between patients. If you have an existing appointment, it may be rescheduled.
- Increasing additional protective equipment (face shields, masks, hair covers) as well as changing doctor and staff uniforms to scrubs.
- Wiping down high traffic areas frequently throughout the day.
- Offering teledentistry services for follow up lab reports or communication that can be done online or through video education.
We look forward to returning to some sense of normalcy and seeing you soon, even without hugs, handshakes, and any physical contact. We appreciate your patience during this transition and thank you for your continued loyalty to Seattle Specialty Dentistry. We look forward to a new beginning!
Sincerely,
Pavinee Chotiwannaporn, DDS, MSc
Luis Alvarado, DDS, MSD
