COVID-19 Update: BACK TO WORK!
As of Monday, May 4, Campbellsville Dental Care has returned to providing routine and non-emergency dental care. The Governor’s office, State Department of Health and Kentucky Board of Dentistry approved dental practices to resume non-emergency treatment the preceding week. However, we felt it important to spend one additional week procuring additional protective equipment, sterilization materials and disinfectants, as well as modifying our office protocols to ensure the safest possible environment for our patients and our office team.
We are confident in our ability to meet federal, state and local guidelines and recommendations for minimizing the potential for viral spread as we return to providing care. You will notice a few internal changes we have made to protect our patients:
Our reception area will remain closed to the public during this reopening phase. Patients are asked to park in our rear parking lot (across S. Columbia Ave. from Druther’s Restaurant) and call the office to notify us of your arrival. A team member will escort you from your vehicle to your treatment room.
No family, friends or visitors are permitted in the office during your appointment, except for guardians of children or disabled adults. Guardians must wear a mask or cloth face covering while in the office. Guardians will be asked to return to their vehicle or wait in a separate waiting area during treatment, unless it is absolutely essential that the guardian be present in the room during treatment.
Patients will be asked about current health status and symptoms when scheduling appointments and prior to being seated on the day of an appointment to screen for potential infection. All patients will have their temperatures taken and recorded. Any patient with a temperature greater than 100.5 F will be re-appointed.
Standard infection control processes (as outlined by the CDC) are adequate to destroy the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). However, we have enhanced our treatment room disinfection and sterilization protocols to exceed requirements as an added measure of caution.
You will also notice that our staff will be wearing additional protective equipment to comply with enhanced aerosol precautions. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has noted dentistry as an “enhanced risk” profession due to the aerosols created by air and water spray during a dental procedure. We are working diligently to mitigate the risk posed to our patients and our office staff by these aerosols, but it is important to note that we can never eliminate the potential for communication of infectious particles. Accordingly, we are asking patients to consider their individual risk profiles when determining if they will seek care. Individuals at higher risk due to age, systemic health conditions, immune suppression/immunocompromised individuals may choose to continue to defer non-urgent treatment until the current public health concerns have decreased.
We value the trust that our patients place in us. At all times, the safety and well-being of our patients is our primary concern. We have missed seeing our patient family over the past two months, and we are eager to resume providing high-quality, compassionate dental care for our community. However, we want to do so in the safest possible manner and do our part to protect those most vulnerable. It is our honor to continue to serve you, and we look forward to seeing you soon!