Why our office is closed?

I am watching the White house briefing from Corona Task Force on NBC as I am writing this post. Dr. Deborah Burke suggested that all doctors and dentists cancel all "elective treatments", She went on to explained that by elective she meant procedures that can be put off by a couple of weeks or more.  With her definition in my mind better than 95% of dental procedures are elective. Most dental problems can wait a couple of weeks or more before receiving treatment. Patients in extreme pain or having symptomatic infections should have their needs addressed sooner.

Our dental office remains closed for now. This is the best way I know to keep my team safe as well as not allowing our office to become an inadvertent  vector for the spread of the virus. I have left my cell phone on my answering machine recording and I remain available to speak to any of my patients whether they are having an emergency or not.

I should add that some of my specialists remain open to treat emergencies and NYU Dental School's Urgent Care Unit is still open.  That being said, at the moment it is my belief that for most patients, going to the dentist  is not their best choice, since we have no real way of knowing who has the corona virus or not. For now there  are simply not enough tests available.

For the time being we will continue to evaluate the situation as it unfolds and do our best to comply with our governments recommendations. For now, Flattening the curve seems to be our best approach and keeping the office closed will help accomplish this goal.




from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2020/03/why-our-office-is-closed.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/

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