Important Information Regarding COVID-19 and our office

We hope you and your family are in good health. Our community has 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 commitment to your safety.

Infection control has always been a top priority for our practice and you may have seen this during your visits to our office. We want to tell you about the infection control procedures we follow in our practice to keep patients and staff safe.

Our office follows the infection control recommendations made by the American Dental Association (ADA), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). We follow the activities of these agencies so that we are up-to-date on any new rulings or guidance that may be issued.

You may see some changes when it is time for your next appointment. We made these changes to help protect our patients and staff. For example:

  • Our office will communicate with you by text 2-days beforehand to ask some screening questions to make sure you are not sick (click please read: Patient Screening Form). Please let us know if you’re sick so we can reschedule your appointment. You will be asked those same questions again when you arrive in the office.
  • We will reschedule the appointments of any patients with COVID-like symptoms such as fever, chills, coughing, sneezing, or loss of taste and smell. We will also reschedule the appointments of any patients who have been in contact with a COVID-19 patient within the past 2 weeks. If you have been diagnosed with COVID-19 or have been in close contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19, we will request physician clearance before we reschedule you at our office. Any of our team members experiencing flu-like symptoms will be required to stay home and not come to work until cleared by a physician.
  • Please call us before you come inside the office to make sure we are ready for you. Your companions will need to stay in the car and wait. We are taking this measure to minimize the contact between individuals and allow for social distancing.
  • Please cover your face with a mask or cloth covering when entering the building (click please read: CDC Cover Your Cough). If you don’t have a mask, please ask us.
  • We will offer hand sanitizer for your use when you enter our practice.
  • We will take your temperature when you arrive and anyone exhibiting an elevated temperature will be rescheduled.
  • You may see that our waiting room will no longer offer magazines for safety reasons.
  • The lobby and reception room area, bathrooms, doorknobs, seat handles and treatment rooms are cleaned with disinfectants on regular basis.
  • You will be greeted by our front office staff who will be wearing surgical mask and face shield as well.
  • We have installed four Plexiglass sneeze shields in the front office area to protect you and our staff.
  • Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients. We may also need to allow certain procedures to be done at specific times of the day. This might mean that you will be offered fewer options for scheduling your appointment.
  • We have air purifiers that clean the office air by UV, Hepa filter and carbon ionizer throughout the day.
  • We will be using an aerosol reducer during procedures that produce aerosols.
  • Personal protective equipment (PPEs) will be changed between each patient.
  • Before seeing each patient, we disinfect our hands and put on a new gown, gloves, mask and face shield.
  • We ask you to rinse your mouth with 1% hydrogen peroxide before each procedure. Coronavirus is vulnerable to oxidation; this will reduce the salivary load of oral microbes.
  • After each patient, we clean all the treatment room surfaces with hospital grade disinfectants that kill 99.9% of viruses, bacteria and spores.
  • We also implemented a 100% safe hospital grade disinfectant (Hypochlorous Acid, HOCL) fogging daily to clean the air and surfaces. The disinfectant fog reaches multiple surfaces in a room, providing an additional approach to our other sanitizing systems.
  • All the dental instruments that contact any patient and/or procedural aerosols are packed and sterilized with hospital grade autoclave equipment, as we have always done.
  • Our sterilizing equipment is tested on a weekly basis by an independent company to ensure the accuracy and efficacy of our sterilization processes.

We look forward to seeing you again and are happy to answer any questions you may have about the steps we take to keep you and every patient safe in our practice. To make an appointment, please call our office. Thank you for being our patient. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming back our patients, neighbors and friends.

Sincerely,

Dr. Nick M. Nguyen and Staff

For further information, including measures to keep yourself healthy, visit the following links:

Please view and share our latest COVID-19 Symptom Comparison Chart with your friends and family.