Hello Everyone:

We hope you and your family are in good health. We want our patients to know that it has been our privilege over the last few weeks to take care of those with emergency dental needs in our community. Like you, we are all looking forward to resuming our normal habits and routines. On May 11, the Mississippi Department of Health and the Mississippi State Board of Dental Examiners has advised that dental offices can begin to return to performing all dental services including dental hygiene while still following certain Covid-19 guidelines. 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; however, we’ve added even more precautions as a result of this pandemic. Some of you likely noticed this during your visit to our office for emergency dental treatment. Our infection control processes are made so that when you receive care, it is 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. We do this to make sure that our infection control procedures are current and adhere to each agency’s recommendations.

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:

• Upon arrival to our office, please call 662-257-9700 to let us know you’ve arrived. A staff member will then come to your vehicle to check your temperature and ask you to fill out a brief questionnaire and consent form.
• We ask that patients enter the office unaccompanied, if possible. For those patients who need a guardian to accompany them, we ask that this be limited to a single family member.
• 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 also ask that if you have a face mask, please wear it until seated in your treatment room as an added precaution.
• Currently, based on the recommendation from the ADA for all dental offices, our waiting area will not be used at this time. For the foreseeable future, we will not be offering magazines, children’s toys, and so forth since these items are difficult to clean and disinfect.
• We will be scheduling appointments in a manner that promotes social distancing and allows adequate time for us to disinfect all areas of use in between patient appointments.
• We will do our best to allow greater time between patients to reduce waiting times for you. However, we do ask that you please be patient and understand that we are doing our best to accommodate everyone’s dental needs efficiently and safely.

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 662-257-9700 or our after-hours emergency line at 662-315-3894. You may also use our website for an appointment request at amorydentist.com.

Thank you for being our patient! We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming back our patients, neighbors, and friends.

Sincerely,

Dr. John Helton, Dr. Joey Helton, and our team at Helton Family Dental Care, PA