New Patient Exams During COVID 19

Because of the COVID 19 pandemic, we have been asked, “Are you still making appointments for new patient consultations?” The answer now is “yes!”, as Douglas county currently has been cleared for dental offices to re-open. We are making major adjustments to our schedule to accommodate patients and families that wish to be seen as soon as possible. There are several things we think are important for the Castle Rock community to be aware of, and the steps we are taking at Meadows Orthodontics to accommodate and protect our new and existing patients. 

• If you are a new patient, or have a child that needs a consult, please call us at 303-660-0112 to schedule a consultation. We are currently open to see new patient consults! If we receive word from from the governing agencies that we have to close again temporarily, we will update our website immediately.

• We recommend setting up a new exam appointment sooner than later, as we will be scheduling the patients that had existing appointments during the temporary closure in the order that they were originally scheduled. This will obviously create a backup of patients that need to be seen. Fortunately, our setup in Castle Rock is going to make it incredibly accommodating and as safe as possible for scheduling existing AND new patients. Our plan to do this is as follows:

USING TWO OFFICES WITH TWO DIFFERENT TEAMS:

We have two offices in Castle Rock; one in the Meadows, and one in the Founders/Terrain area. Until the COVID situation is under control in the U.S., we are going to maximize distancing in our offices by dividing our staff into two teams.

We will be extending our hours, dividing the two teams to be open six days a week in Castle Rock, with extended evening hours which will significantly reduce the number of people in our office at one time, but will increase the amount of patients that we will see each week until we are caught up. This will allow my staff to work the same number of hours as before, but I will be working many more (it’s lucky that I used to be a dairy farmer with crazy long hours!).

NEW SCREENING PROTOCOL

All patients and parents will be screened prior to entering the office, and we will take your temperature with a temporal (forehead) scan.  Screening questions will be asked of every patient and their accompanying parent.  A waiver will need to be signed by the parent for themselves or their minor child at every appointment until further notice (hopefully we will be back to normal soon!). 

VIRTUAL WAITING ROOM:

We are asking that only the patient enter our office, while parents and siblings stay in their cars. We will communicate by phone, and proper distancing. Exceptions to this are a younger child who needs a parent with them, new patient consultations, and a parent of a special needs child.  Parents are asked to stand or sit at least six feet away from the orthodontic assistant and Dr. Rejman.

NEW OSHA and PPP GUIDELINES:

In addition to the normal disinfection and sterilization standards by OSHA and the CDC, we have decided as an office to greatly increase the “layers” of protection for our patients and staff that will be our new standard moving forward. Changes that we are currently implementing to achieve these goals are the following:

We have ordered the highest quality medical grade air-filtration units available, from a company called Surgically Clean Air. We decided to place three of them in our treatment areas (with two additional HEPA filters), which will give us an amazingly fast turn-over and purification of air volume in our office. It is a multi-stage filtration system which also targets viruses on multiple levels. This is to maximize the “airborne” layer of protection in our offices, which is especially important with the COVID mode of transmission (but will also be amazing even after the virus is under control in the U.S.). 

We are retrofitting all of our faucets and soap dispensers (a total of 9) to touchless technology. This will greatly help to eliminate cross-contamination during handwashing, and will allow more efficient and greater compliance of handwashing for both our patients and our staff. This is to help improve the “contact” layer of protection. 

We are greatly increasing the amount and accessibility of medical grade hand sanitizer in our offices, and will have dispensers present at every treatment chair (instead of just on our counters and walls), so that our patients and assistants will have easier and more immediate access to them. 

WASHING and SANITIZING:

The CDC currently recommends using alcohol based hand sanitizer between patients, unless hands are visibly soiled which requires hand washing. We are going to exceed the CDC recommendations by requiring assistants to sanitize every time they remove their gloves (even if staying with their same patient), AND to wash their hands in between every patient. Is this a bit redundant? Yes, but we have found that patients and families usually do not see us using the sanitizer (assistants often apply it in our sterilization room). We want to help not only make things more hygienic, but also more visible.   

During this period of trying to contain the COVID pandemic, the CDA and CDC are working on releasing guidelines for dental offices to re-open. Depending on the procedure, you will likely see us in a variety of facemasks, face shields, disposable gowns, etc… This is going to be a fluid situation as the virus gets under control, and we will adhere to suggested and mandated protocols. Please don’t laugh at us if we look funny! ☺

Please be patient and understanding with dental and medical professionals during this time. We have your family’s best interest in mind and are trying to protect you and the community the best that we can.  At the same time, we are required to follow certain guidelines.  There will be some who think that the dental and medical communities are “over-doing it”, but we would rather error on the side of being overly cautious at this time. This is what I would want for my own family, and so far the vast majority of our parents and patients agree and appreciate our efforts.

Thank you!  Stay safe and healthy!

-Dr. Dan and staff