The COVID-19 pandemic has created a lot of uncertainty for you, your family and friends, and for our dental office. As you may be aware, dental offices in the United States have been closed due to state and national mandates. These mandates are affecting patients the employment of staff members and the livelihood of dentists.
At this time, dental offices are limited to providing emergency care only. Local and state government have required dental office to follow the emergency care mandates to limit procedures for patients to mitigate the spread of COVID 19 and to prevent a strain on the local emergency rooms. It was also created to decrease the use of personal protective equipment (PPE’s) that dental offices use, thus allowing emergency and medical providers to have access to protective equipment.
If you call our office and are unable to speak with a staff member, please keep in mind that we might not be in the office or that we might be in the office on limited days/hours. We will check the answering machine throughout the day and attempt to get with you as soon as possible. Please remember that we might be limited on what we can and cannot do for our patients due to government mandates and restrictions.
We appreciate your patience as we try to meet your dental needs while keeping you and our staff safe during this pandemic.
WHAT CONSTITUTES EMERGENCY CARE?
The ADA (American Dental Association) has created guidelines as to what is classified as emergency and non-emergency care. The guidelines were created to
Based on the ADA’s guidelines, the following constitute emergency care:
- Severe dental pain from pulpal inflammation
- Pericoronitis (swelling of the gums over an erupting tooth) or third-molar pain
- Surgical postoperative osteitis (bone infection after dental surgery) or dry socket dressing changes
- Abscess or localized bacterial infection resulting in localized pain and swelling
- Tooth fracture resulting in pain or causing soft tissue trauma
- Dental trauma with avulsion/luxation (movement of teeth)
- Dental treatment cementation if the temporary restoration is lost, broken or causing gingival irritation
Based on these guidelines, it may be necessary to delay your treatment of have you referred to a specialist. We will do everything we can to take care of you while we keep everyone healthy and safe.
WHAT IF I WANT TO BE SEEN BUT DON’T MEET THE CRITERIA FOR EMERGENCY CARE?
At this time, only emergency care will be available to our patients. As soon as we are able to see patients on a regular basis, we will schedule you! We will reschedule all appointments that were scheduled during this shut-down period. We care about you and just want to keep everyone safe and healthy! Again, we appreciate your patience during this uncertain time.
