Covid - 19 Update
News from Dr. Klitzke’s office January 2022
Everything is back to normal at our office. We all ready follow OSHA and CDC protocols , but will be doing more to prevent the spread of this particular virus. When you return here are some of the changes we have made:
When you make your dental appoint let us know if you are sick and we can save you a trip to our office to see if you should be staying home or seeing a physician. I recommend you pick up a thermometer at your local drug store to check your temperature before seeing your dentist or doctor If you are not feeling well or have a temperature of 100 degrees or higher or not feeling well you should call your doctor for advice and not come in for a dental appointment.
1. If you have a fever, coughing, not feeling well or have been exposed to the Coronal virus, call us before you come. To prevent spreading the virus, we will not be seeing patients with Covid 19 symptoms. We are still checking your temperature when you arrive for your appointment and asking patients about any symptoms before entering our office.. It is everyone’s responsibility to seek out medical care if they have those symptoms instead of spreading the virus to others. We will be checking employees for symptoms of COvid 19 and taking their temperature each day when they arrive for work.
2. We ask that you wear a mask or facial covering to our office and maintain social distancing of 6 feet from other patients. You can call us from the parking lot that you are here outside our office so we can limit the number of people in our reception room. You can remove your mask in our dental operatories.
3. In addition to the OSHA and CDC Standards we have already in place, we will be disinfecting toilets, door knobs, faucet and toilet handles, pens, clip boards, light switches and anything that patients have touched to with hospital grade grade disinfectant to protect you and our staff .
4. You may have to be more patient as we clean and disinfect our rooms between patients.
5. When we use our dental high-speed hand pieces and the dental hygiene Cavitron, which create aerosol, we will be wearing KN 95 and N95 high filtration masks and face shields.
6. I have purchased four air filtration units that are extremely efficient in killing bacteria and viruses.
7. You will notice an acrylic protective shield in the dental reception room at the check in counter.
8. Inform us of any changes in your phone number or insurance when you call to make appointments,
9. We have hand sanitizer at the front desk for you to use for your hand when you arrive and we will have you rinse with hydrogen peroxide before your treatment that is effective against viruses.
10. We will be using hospital grade disinfectant on all door knobs toilets, faucets, pens, clipboards, counter tops and other areas that patients touch.
11. We have removed magazines from the waiting room as they are hard to disinfect.
12. Anything that goes into your mouth will be brand new, sterilized or disinfected for your protection.
13. We may be using a rubber dental dam over your tooth when we do fillings. This soft green flexible rubber square easily isolates the tooth we are working on and prevents splatter of saliva and the water from the handpiece.
14. Even though these safety steps will increase treatment time and it will cost our office more, I do not have any current plans to increase fees. Let us know if there is something else we can do to help you feel safe.
15. We have Special HEPA air filtration units on the office to pull bacteria and viruses out of the air to be ionized in our highly rated Med Air filtration units.
16. The advantage our office has over others, is that we have always treated low number of patients at a time, to personalize care rather than be a high volume of patients office. It is much easier to maintain social distancing in our office with the low number of patients checking in and out.
The new strains of Covid are not as severe as the first one, so the pandemic is now starting to go away.. We recommend the booster vaccine to maintain your resistance to the Covid virus. Covid Vaccines have been proven to reduce the severity of getting Covid. Being unvaccinated is a considerable risk and has shown to enhance your chances of ending up in the hospital and even dying from Covid. Dentistry always has risen to the challenge of treating patients with PAST transmittable diseases and I have 30 years of experience of treating patients safely. We have not had any transmission of the Covid virus in our office so far.
Al Klitzke DDS