Midtown is a ghost town?



 We have been open since June 8th and our neighborhood was pretty deserted. It looked like Sunday at 8 Am.   Slowly it has become progressively busier and now when I leave work at 5- 6 PM each day, there are now definitely more people walking around. There are more people on the subway and I can't always find an empty seat.

While here are a lot of empty offices in our neighborhood (4oth st between Madison and Park ave), clearly the worst panic has subsided. While infectivity rate in NYC is hovering around 1%, it is  much lower among our returning patients, most of whom have been staying home and most are working remotely from home. 

 Prior to Covid, most of our working patients had jobs in midtown,  so our practice was convenient to get to. Now they have been sheltering in place where they reside and many drive their cars and park in a lot on 39th st. Most are happy to see us and share that they are pleased to be able to maintain a sense of normality while they receive overdue dental care. 

Truth be told we are even happier to see them. Even though we have done our best to create safe environment ( Airprurifiers, open windows, HOCL fogging, and super clean environment) there was no guarantee that our patients would return in sufficient numbers to make staying open a certainty.

So far we are doing OK,  treading water so to speak, since Our billings are about 2/3 of their pre pandemic levels. Thankfully this is enough for us to stay current and not dip into our credit lines. We have been able to keep our staffing levels close to what they were prior to March 2020 ( only one staff member has been furloughed and that was by mutual agreement) None of our staff has called in sick and no one has called up after a visit with the news that they have gotten a Covid diagnosis. 

Unfortunately there have been a lot of retail closures in our neighborhood. My favorite bakery had maintained two storefronts on 40th, Maison Kaiser and their premises are still empty. We have had to change where we purchase our lunches, but there are still a number of good places  a short walk from our office. Benjamin's , a steak house located across the street from our office, has set up a number of out door tables and our local street scape is actually quite pleasant.

If you are contemplating coming in to visit our office, rest assured that almost all our returning patients have been pleased that they have come in for a dental visit. If you are fortunate enough to have dental insurance, we are starting the fourth quarter of the year and it is likely that you will soon loose the opportunity to fully utilize your 2020 dental benefits. Why not make an appointment now, while there is still time to complete any needed dental treatment  before the new 2021 benefit period begins? 

Our website lspindeldds.com, features a button that will allow booking online appointments, so why wait. We are still open Monday -Thursday and will be happy to see you!



from Ask Dr. Spindel - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/2020/09/midtown-is-ghost-town.html - http://lspindelnycdds.blogspot.com/

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Help! My Child is Terrified of the Dentist

Image
If you’re the parent of a young child, you know their brains are similar to sponges that soak up everything around them—especially in their first five years, which neuroscientists say is when they’ll do the most learning and developing in their entire life. At this formative time, your child may amaze you with what they notice: your facial expressions, the different tones of your voice, and your habits. If your habits include regular dental visits and an excellent oral hygiene routine, they’ll notice and want to emulate you. If you happen to feel anxious about your dental visits, or you groan when you’ve got to floss and brush, they may synchronize and feel your dread. This could lead to dental fears that stick with them for years—potentially a lifetime! Kids Can Be Courageous If you’re feeling guilty right now, go ahead and put that away as it won’t serve you or your little one. Everyone has some room for improvement, and Coastal Pediatric Dentistry® is here to help show you an
Read more

Going for the Gold?

Image
On the left is the older allow, on the right the new one that my lab has chosen to use The cost of a penny weight of pure gold is currently $79.53. The cost of a penny weight of pure palladium is $130.6. It used to be that palladium was added instead of gold to the precious metals often used for pfms, but now laboratories are finding that palladium is no longer affordable. The lab that I am using has just changed the formulation of the metal it's using to one that has more gold than palladium. I really do not mind, but metals with more gold are softer and often easier for a dentist to accidentally polish off delicate margins. It is important when polishing "higher gold" formulations to exert less hand pressure when performing the final polishing of the crown's margins. Other wise there should be no problem with this change. Traditionally labs have chosen alloys with higher gold percentages for optimal esthetics, since alloys with higher concentrations of
Read more

Tongue Ties: What Parents Need to Know

Image
For a long time, people just didn’t seem to know much about tongue ties. In the early years of my practice, few of my patients had ever heard of a tongue tie. When I pointed out that they or their children might be tongue tied, I was often the very first practitioner who’d mentioned it to them. When I told them that a tongue tie might actually be the root cause of their oral myofunctional issues, or even their sleep apnea , I’m sure that some of them thought I was crazy. But in the last few years, things have changed so much! Initially, there was a small increase in the number of patients who were contacting me specifically about tongue ties. Dentists and orthodontists also began reaching out more frequently to discuss the application of myofunctional therapy exercises to tongue tie treatment. But in the last year or so, that little bit of interest has become a surge of awareness. Tongue ties and their effects on health and craniofacial development are finally becoming mainstream.
Read more