Normalizing Safety in our Practice
Can you believe that it has been more than 18 months since the coronavirus pandemic forced the public to suspend routine care and ‘non-essential’ dentist visits?
And worse! We’ve found that those who avoided seeking necessary dental care have experienced adverse outcomes to their health with progressed decay, pain and higher incidence of infection!
But there is good news! Since the pandemic, our team at Smile Wonders has made several modifications to our operating procedures to make our practice an even safer space you and our team alike,
We are going above and beyond standard protocol while adhering to new state and local guidelines to stop the spread of the virus. You can feel safe to seek the routine or emergency dental care you need and know that your child’s pediatric dental office is doing everything in their power to keep you and everyone else safe!
Wellness Forms and Symptoms Monitoring 
Our team wants to make sure that all of our patients are being served in a safe environment, and we make every effort to minimize exposure to any children and/or families with symptoms.
We ask that all families complete a wellness form that is sent directly to their mobile phone by 8a on the day of the appointment so that they can report or attest to lack of any Covid-19 like symptoms.
We ask that while answering the screening questions on the wellness forms, you keep in mind the symptoms observed for your child who has the appointment as well as anyone else in the household.
On the day of the appointment, our team will be extra vigilant about monitoring symptoms for our patients and families to help guide them as needed regarding safety requirements.
We require that patients that are exhibiting symptoms on the wellness form or during their appointment in the office, provide proof of a negative covid-19 test or reschedule their appointment for at least 7 days out.
One parent/guardian per family
We invite one parent or guardian to accompany the patient(s) that have scheduled appointment. If another parent would like to be a part of the visit via remote methods such as video calling, facetime, or other means, they are more than welcome to participate virtually. This gives you the opportunity to see our team in action and allows our doctors and team to discuss findings and treatment needs with you directly and safely.
We often have more than one child in the family that has an appointment on the same day. Each child will be schedule one after the other with the same Smile Wonders team member so that we can reduce the number of contacts made during appointment. The same parent is asked to accompany all children in the family for their appointments on any single day.
For the safety and privacy of all patients, other children who do not have an appointment, should remain at home with a supervising adult, unless that child is a breastfeeding infant who is coming with mom to the appointment.
Masks before entering the office
At Smile Wonders, each team member will utilize a surgical and/or practice branded mask for patient safety and child friendly appearance.
We ask that all patients above age 5 and their accompanying parent or guardian wear a mask before entering our office. If you do not have a mask, a practice mask will be made available to you.
Children will be asked to remove their mask only during the active treatment time to allow for team and doctor access. At all other times, including while reviewing medical history updates and oral hygiene instructions, masks need to be utilized.
Our team will be able to help you and your child with guidelines of proper mask use and placement if needed. Appropriate mask use is when nose and mouth are covered adequately to prevent aerosol transmission.
Modified Appointment Protocol
At Smile Wonders, we now utilize staggered appointment scheduling protocol to help limit contact between patient families.
Our child play areas and the reception is area are now open! However, we are continuing to use social distancing guidelines in our office. We ask that families maintain a distance of 6 feet at all times from other families and our team.
We are continuing to designate individual closed private rooms for each patient or family.
Our open bay operatories are limited in use at this time. They may be utilized at the discretion of the Smile Wonders team, especially for families with more than two children have scheduled appointments.
Our sneeze guards in the reception area, air purifiers in each room, and face shields used by our team during treatment continue to improve the air quality and keep pathogens under check.
Teledentistry services to keep you safe 
Smile Wonders has also limited the exchange of physical paperwork by sending out touchless digital paperwork to our patients that can be completed from the comfort of your home.
Additionally, if you are unsure about whether or not you need to schedule an in-office appointment, you can schedule a telemedicine appointment with Smile Wonders. We are pleased to offer a HIPAA compliant video conferencing platform that allows the doctors and our team to review your child’s concern and symptoms from the safety of your home. Over the last year and a half, we have become highly proficient in guiding parents to facilitate a detailed and thorough virtual exam for the children of any age and abilities.
This option works especially well for our new parents and babies that might be experiencing feeding difficulties. A telemedicine visit is a great way to get to know the doctor and come up with a plan for upcoming visits for children with dental anxiety.
Teledentistry is also a convenient and accessible way to receive emergency or afterhours care. Be sure to complete the teledentistry form on our website for requesting afterhours support.
You shouldn’t feel the need to forego essential or urgent care, including regular dental check-ups due to fear of the virus! Delaying care could lead to detrimental effects to your oral and overall health.