Coronavirus (COVID-19) Updates
In an effort to follow the latest guidance from the CDC and ADA, we are committed to doing our part to slow the spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in our community.
Appointments
The dental industry faces its own unique challenges and vulnerabilities for safety from this highly contagious virus, as the vast majority of our work is done in a patient’s mouth. We are limiting in-office appointments to specific services and days for treatment. Our Phase I services are limited to current patients who are in the midst of treatment: patients waiting for placement of their definitive restorations and ortho/invisalign patients who are needing to move to the next stage of treatment. In addition, we will have emergency appointments available for extractions, swelling, broken tooth, or pain. If you fall into this category, please email us (info@intownsmilestudio.com) with your symptoms or concerns and we will contact you for scheduling. Our target is to move into Phase 2 services, like checkup and cleaning appointments, in June. We encourage you to remain diligent in your home care until we can resume these services.
Many of you may have a specific dental concerns you feel need to be addressed right away but don’t fall into the limited treatments listed above. To help address those dental concerns quickly, we offer tele-health dental visits via Zoom. The fee is $79. If you have qualified dental insurance, we will bill the exam fee to your dental carrier. Please call our office, email us at info@intownsmilestudio.com or visit our website to schedule your Virtual Telehealth Evaluation.
We ask for your patience and support while we strive to be safe and get through this. We will continue to follow the recommendations from the ADA, OSHA and CDC. We are adding additional safety measures so that we all can feel safe to return to dentistry. We encourage you to view our website for permanent and modified changes you can expect from us.
What Will Be Different?
Our office routines will be modified and we want our patients to be prepared and know what to expect.
We will actively screen patients before they enter our office, as well as reduce the number of patients in our practice throughout the day to allow social distancing. We have always been and continue to be committed to keeping our office impeccably clean and sanitized.
We will increase the frequency of our office cleanings.
We have and continue to use medical grade ozone water during our dental procedures. Ozone water kills bacteria and viruses on contact and disinfects the tooth surfaces and oral cavity where we work.
Our practice and clinical rooms will be equipped with medical grade air purifying systems. These HEPA H13 medical air-purifying filters remove 99.97% of the particles in the air (including bacteria, virus carriers, mold, dust, pollen, etc) and return clean, fresh air to our clinical rooms every 15 minutes.
We have reduced the number of commonly touched surfaces in our office. Walk through any business that serves the community and you will see common touch-points throughout a business. These are items and surfaces that get used frequently during the day and on which the virus can innocently be transmitted. For example, we will avoid the exchange of any papers in our office. Any statements, receipts or treatment plans will be provided electronically. This also means we will remove warm neck pillows and blankets from the amenities that we typically provide for your comfort. We also removed visitor chairs inside our patient rooms. We will do our part and frequently wipe down surfaces within our office.
We have implemented the following additional measures as recommended by the CDC and American Dental Association: These guidelines may be reduced over time as the CDC and ADA recommend.
- ALL individuals (patients and staff) will be screened for illness before entering the office. You will receive a digital prescreen questionnaire that needs to be completed and submitted electronically prior to your appointment. It is important that you complete your registration and or prescreening forms online prior to arriving for your scheduled time. Not doing so, may require cancellation of your appointment.
If you have any symptoms including, but not limited to fever, cough, & shortness of breath, please call our office and reschedule your appointment. For your safety and others, we will check your temperature at the start of the appointment — we cannot see a patient with a fever above 99.6 degrees F. Please wear your mask to our office. If you do not have a mask, we will have one for you to purchase. Everyone in our office will wear a mask at all times. Once in the treatment room, we will ask that you wash or sanitize your hands. - We are adjusting appointment times and lengths in order to ensure that patients do not need to wait in our waiting room and limit the interaction with other patients. We support the strategy of social distancing, which very likely will result in a modification of your scheduled appointment time.
- When you arrive, please wait in your vehicle and call us at 404-381-8586 to let us know that you are here. Once the prior patient has left the office and we have completed our sanitization procedures, we will call you and welcome you in for your appointment. We ask that patients do not handle or touch their digital devices (ear buds, cell phones, watches) once they enter our office.
- Please only bring someone with you if absolutely necessary (driver, guardian, etc.). Please do not bring children with you, unless the appointment is for your child.
We recognize that these changes may be inconvenient for some and a welcome relief for others. Our goal is to safety for our patients and team.
Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.