Emergency Dentistry

We hope this letter finds you and your family in good health. Our communities have been through a lot over the last few months, and all of us are looking forward to resuming our normal habits and routines. While many things have changed, one thing has remained the same: our office’s commitment to your safety.

Infection control has always been a top priority in our practice. We follow the recommendations and guidelines made by the American Dental Association (ADA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). This allows us to make sure that our infection control procedures are up-to-date and enables us to provide the safest environment for our patients and their family members.

We ask that you please be patient and understand that we will do our best to accommodate your scheduling needs as we know many of you are anxious to get back into our office.

During this time, we have implemented additional safety precautions to help protect our patients and staff.

Upon scheduling an appointment, a COVID-19 questionnaire will be emailed to you. The day before your appointment we will be calling to go over this questionnaire with you for a prescreening process. We will need to postpone treatment for any patient who has experienced or been in contact with someone who has experienced the following symptoms within 14 days of your scheduled appointment date: fever, cough, loss of taste and/or smell, flu-like symptoms, difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, and fatigue.

If you are over the age of 65 or have preexisting health conditions such as diabetes, chronic lung disease or asthma, serious heart conditions, are immunocompromised, or have chronic kidney or liver disease, per the CDC’S recommendation we should contact your primary care provider to see if it is appropriate to perform dental treatment at this time. If you fall into this category but need to accompany a child or family member for a visit, please call our office as we will handle this request on a case-by-case basis.

We will be scheduling appointments in a manner that promotes social distancing and allows for adequate time for us to disinfect all areas of use between patient appointments.

Please take your temperature the morning of your appointment. You will need to call the office upon arrival so we can have our screening assistant meet you at your car once the office is ready for you to enter and confirm that no fever is present with a contactless thermometer.

We ask that patients enter the office unaccompanied, if possible. For those patients who need a guardian to accompany them, we ask that this be limited to a single family member. Every person entering the office is expected to wear a face covering and will be asked to sanitize their hands immediately upon entry.

Our waiting room will no longer offer magazines, children’s toys, and so forth, since these items are difficult to clean and disinfect. Our doctor and staff will be wearing all of the recommended personal protective equipment (PPE). Thank you for being part of our family dental practice. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming back our patients, neighbors, and friends.

Dr. Steven F Larsen and Staff