"As a doctor, it is truly frustrating to see patients in serious pain, looking for help, and I cannot provide them with solid solutions and a surgery date. I, too, have to take cues from the hospital system and government. Some surgeons thought that we would end up with a large spike of patients having surgery because we were delaying cases, but that has not happened. Hospitals are limiting their surgical schedules to 25 and 50% of their normal volume. The clinic schedules are also minimal. And we still have patients with urgent and emergent problems who need to be treated", says Dr. Mohammed Ali.
We are happy to announce that Implants Pro Center, San Francisco, has started seeing patients in our office from 1st June 2020. We are also providing services via HIPAA compliant tele-dentistry for remote consulting. As we adjust our schedule, we ask for your patience and understanding as we move through different reopening phases.
For your information, we have resumed elective surgery. Still, every patient is screened and then tested before the operation is allowed. While this is not full proof, it is better than a simple screening procedure as many patients are asymptomatic carriers, and don't convert until a few days later. We have several task forces set up to work on protocols and plans to return to elective surgery. All surgical cases will be assigned a priority to determine how urgently the procedure needs to occur. The type of surgery, resources required, and patient risk factors determine the schedule of each case.
The biggest concern about returning to doing elective cases is having staff members or patients exposed and infected with COVID. This will require that there is a routine screening of all to ensure they are COVID negative. Similarly, all patients would require screening before their procedure. We have already checked with adequate resources available, including a healthy workforce, COVID testing capabilities.
Finally, a new local outbreak as a return to normal will increase transmission. Since we can expect this to return or have a resurgence, it is difficult to predict how we will be able to resume completely normal operations in the foreseeable future. As we start to reopen, we have to be prepared to change how 'we used to practice.' Getting back to 'normal' will take a very long time, but it will most likely never be the same. Things will need to change, and change is always challenging.
At Implants Pro Center© we are taking the following measures to keep you safe:
- All staff are wearing N95 masks
- We are checking both patients and visitors adequately for COVID-19 symptoms.
- Only one guardian is allowed per patient to decrease the traffic inside our office.
- We have dismissed the commonly touched items, such as magazines, newspapers, brochures, etc.
- We are making every effort to maintain a comfortable social distancing.
- Surgical patients are screened at least three times before the arrival.
- We sanitize thoroughly the equipment used among various cases.
- Additional sanitization cleaning and disinfection of high touch surfaces are done.
- We provide ample hand sanitizers and adopt increased hand-washing standards.
- We don’t allow our staff to work with any patients who have symptoms of COVID-19.
- We are monitoring the supplies available.
- Busy waiting rooms are not acceptable now.
- We are integrating in-person and virtual patient clinic visits to be efficient.
- We are limiting each patient's exposure to staff (check-in, medical assists, APPs, schedulers, x-ray techs, etc.)
Implants Pro Center©, San Francisco, offers a consultation at your convenience. You can learn more about dental implants and Implant Pro Center's treatment approaches. Find out today how dental implants can change your life. At Implants Pro Center©, we take all primary dental and medical PPO insurances, along with Medicare. You are thereby decreasing your anxiety about the expense of dental implant treatment or any oral surgeries. A tremendously experienced and caring team will give life-long care, maintenance, and assistance. Implants Pro Center© is also decked with all the modern technologies like digital x-rays, CT-Scan, Intravenous Sedation, Platelet Rich Fibrin, etc. to present nothing less than the best of services. You will be entirely at ease for any of your surgeries. "The safety of our patients and workforce will be the number one priority."