Hi Everyone,
This is Dr. Karpac giving you an update on how our first week back went at JK Orthodontics!! It was great!!
Thank you for those who came in this past week and trusted us and trusted us with their children they were brave, and they were protected.
We have a protocol where you hand sanitize, then go to a handwash station, wash hands, brush teeth, rinse with a H202 rinse, and then rewash hands. Then we see you. You leave out a different path than you came in and hand sanitize on the way out again.
We instituted a Docusign health release and informed consent release that you can sign on your phone or on a computer. This is mandatory for you to be able to enter the office. You can see the flow in the office on social media with a video of the flow and layout of each office.
We are trying to go contactless. So, we have virtual appointments for now on our website so that I can follow you remotely with photos if you have concerns of coming in. In the future we will have contactless request for scheduling of appointments. A grid will come up on the website which syncs with our orthodontic software to see what’s available. You will request your appointment time and day and then we will confirm it if it’s a good fit for us as well. We are seeing a big surge in new patients that want to utilize our Line M Up aligners to align their teeth.
We saw about 20 patients per day this past week. We had some flow problems, but we fixed that for future appointments. We have to spread everyone out without crossover.
I was able to secure a PPP loan for my staff and continue to pay them out of that money for next two months. I am thankful to the legislators and our government for helping us out at this time.
We do not have any N-95 masks at this time, but they are coming. We have gowns coming as well. Since we are in orthodontics we are not creating aerosol, so N-95 masks and gowns are required for most of the procedures we do.
One of the biggest problems we will face is taking off braces. This will only be allowed after we have fitted N-95 masks and gowns. So, when we take off the glue on teeth this causes a cloud of vapor around the patient and us and that’s what is concerning. I am waiting for further updates from the CDC and the OSDB and ADA on this.
Testing is the ideal way to figure things out but there is still a problem with testing as you may test negative but actually might have just contracted Covid. This is called a false negative and happens within the first five days of contracting the virus with the current tests available. So someday we hope to have testing for every patient that walks through the door and does not carry false negative readings.
We take little steps every day to get the new flow down to a science. Your health and safety are the most important. We will continue down this road next week and the week after. All is well in this new approach and I thank you again for being one of our patients. Have a great day.
Oh, I have to get fitted for an N-95 mask at OSU to be able to continue to teach so the beard will be coming off soon. This is a requirement for a tight seal of the N-95 mask. And maybe I’ll get my hair cut!!!
See you soon,
Dr. Karpac