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We Look Forward To Seeing You In The Office Soon!

Staff | May 2020

Dear Patients:

We appreciate your loyalty during this unpredictable time. Our EJL Dental Family has been eagerly and diligently preparing to resume elective/non-emergent procedures, developing new in-office protocols for our doctors, team and patients and acquiring the necessary Personal Protective Equipment (PPE). In order to provide the quality of care you have come to count on at EJL Dental we are finalizing the details before we can resume “normal” operations.

We ask for your continued patience as we adjust to the new protocols that are required in order for us to return to providing oral health care procedures in a manner to protect our patients and our team of doctors, assistants, hygienists and administrators. We ask for your understanding when scheduling appointments. Just like you, we have children who are out of school/daycare, partners whose work schedules have been affected, and other circumstances that we are juggling in order to maximize our availability to our patients. We will be extending hours, adding days to our schedule to accommodate all our loyal patients who have been waiting for their oral care. We will also be extending many appointment times to allow for limited patient-to-patient contact in our office and to maintain social
distancing recommendations as much as possible.

We are so excited to be able to return to our mission of providing comprehensive oral health care to all of our patients! We look forward to seeing you in the office soon!

With that in mind, we have a 9-point plan to maximize health and safety in our office going forward. Please familiarize yourself with this plan prior to coming to your appointment.
1. All patients will be emailed a link to a Wellness Survey and updated Informed Consent that must be filled out in the 24 hours prior to EACH APPOINTMENT. It will be available on our social media accounts and website, so you can access it anytime. We ask that you please fill out the survey electronically and return prior to your appointment.
2. All people entering our office must be wearing a mask. We are only able to stock enough disposable masks for the use of our staff, so we ask that each person brings their own.
3. All people entering our office will have their temperature taken (forehead thermometer) and will be provided with hand sanitizer to use.
4. Our reception area will mostly be closed. This means we will ask that patients wait in their car until their treatment chair is ready. Please arrive 5 minutes early and call the office when you arrive (301) 881-6170. While you wait, please fill out the wellness survey attached to your appointment reminder if you have not already completed it. We cannot see any patient who has not filled out this form prior to each visit.
5. We will try to limit the number of people in the office as much as possible, so we request that adult and older juvenile patients come in for their appointments alone. For our younger patients, or those that require special assistance, one adult may accompany the patient – this person will also be asked to complete the wellness survey, wear a mask, and have their temperature taken. Please no siblings without appointments or other guests. Though our favorite part of our office is the family atmosphere, right now we have to love the whole family from afar.
6. Half the usual number of patients will be seen in the clinic area at a time, and patients will be seated as far apart as possible. Our tooth-brushing area will be closed to prevent cross contamination, so please brush and floss well prior to the appointment. This “socially distant scheduling” will unfortunately make finding the perfect appointment time a little more difficult. We understand many of our patients are concerned about not having been seen in our office for some time. We empathize 100%, and so we will be working very hard to catch up on thousands of missed appointments. We will have to see every patient in the order that they were originally scheduled, unless there is an urgent concern. We are committed to getting everyone back on track.
7. We may look a little bit different at your appointment! Many dental and orthodontic procedures generate dental aerosols and special personal protective equipment and measures will be required for our doctors and team members for these procedures. These steps in particular are very important to significantly minimize the risks to all staff and patients in our office, and so we cannot be as flexible on scheduling these types of appointments as we were in the past.
8. Our staff is undergoing extra training to safely work in our new environment, and have the full protections recommended by all regulatory bodies. The entire EJL Team will also undergo daily temperature checks and screening questions to monitor our own health.
9. We have Teledental and Teleortho appointments available. Some appointments, like orthodontic observations, retainer monitoring, aligner progress checks, etc. are easy to conduct virtually. You may also request a virtual appointment for any orthodontic treatment status if you would feel more comfortable working remotely with us for the time being. Some emergency dental exams can also be offered virtually. Depending on your emergency, you may be directed to send photographs of the area and a member of our Triage Team will contact you to determine the ability to conduct a virtual visit. This will not only save you a trip, it promotes social distance.

Please do not hesitate to contact our office to discuss any questions you may have about our new health and safety policies. Please don’t forget to return the Wellness Survey and treatment consent that will be included with your next appointment reminder.

In Good Health,
Your EJL Dental Family