Our community has been through a lot over the last two years, 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. Our infection control processes are made so that when you receive care, it’s both safe and comfortable. We want to tell you about the infection control procedures we follow in our practice to keep patients and staff safe.

Our office follows 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 beforehand to ask some screening questions. You’ll be asked those same questions again when you are in the office.
  • We have hand sanitizer that we will ask you to use when you enter the office. You will also find some in the reception area and other places in the office for you to use as needed.
  • We’ve installed Molekule air purifiers in our operatories.
  • You may see that our waiting room will no longer offer magazines, children’s toys and so forth, since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect.
  • Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients. That might mean that you’re offered fewer options for scheduling your appointment.
  • We will do our best to allow greater time between patients to reduce waiting times for you, as well as to reduce the number of patients in the reception area at any one time.

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 at 518-438-1131.  

Letter from 3rd District Dental Society of the State of New York

October 2020

To Our Valued Members of the Third District Dental Society:

This has been a trying year for dentists everywhere. We have all experienced our fair share of hardship and uncertainty. I am thrilled to share in your happiness that the ADA has released a new report, with dentists testing positive for COVID-19 less than 1%. This is far below the infection rate of other health care providers.

“This is very good news for dentists and patients,” said American Dental Association (ADA) Science and Research Institute Chief Executive Officer Marcelo Araujo, D.D.S., M.S., Ph.D., the senior author of the report. “This means that what dentists are doing – heightened infection control and increased attention to patient and dental team safety – is working.”

As I am sure many of you are aware. We have been fighting an ongoing battle with the public as to whether dental offices are safe for treatment during the pandemic. The New York Times released an article on June 25 (https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/25/health/dentist-coronavirus-safe.html) asking whether or not it is safe to return to your dental office. This opinion piece contained zero data on transmission of disease at dental offices. In a time when dentists across the nations were expanding protective protocols for themselves, their staff, and their patients, this was a difficult read.

I wanted to write to you all to let you know that I have been in touch with the leadership at NYSDA and we will be working all of our media contacts to get this information out to the greater public. I hope you are all doing well. Please contact me with any questions or concerns.

Sincerely,

Timothy Adams, DDS

President, Third District Dental Society