COVID-19 UPDATE

Hello!! We are so excited to see your smiling faces again starting next MONDAY May 18th
We have missed your kids a LOT and are very ready to start entering a new phase of this pandemic safely with our community. This has been a hard time for everyone – from not being able to play at the park and high five a friend to missing prom and graduation – and we feel for all of the families in our practice that adjusted to a “new normal.” Thank you all for your kindness and understand as our practice works to care for your kids!

We are beginning general patient care in PHASES and will be starting *PHASE ONE* next week. We are going to outline the changes our office has planned for upcoming visits so you know ahead of time and are prepared ??

WHAT DOES "PHASE ONE" MEAN?

• That means things are not quite normal yet… but we have a plan! (insert super-mom bitmoji with cape ?)
• Our *NUMBER ONE* priority is the oral health, safety and well-being of your child. We remain dedicated to high quality dental care from our Board-Certified Pediatric Dentists and staff. But this is new for everyone and dentistry may “look” different.

OK – WHAT’s DIFFERENT?

• Lots of stuff! We’ll break it down into parts for you here. Get cozy … This will be a long one!
• We’ve also attached a more “condensed” photo to this post if you need the quick gist.
• We also have a little “FAQ” section down in the comments for your entertainment and information. If you have another question for us... fire away!

SOCIAL DISTANCING:

• We’ll be staggering family and patient appointment times to avoid overlap in our clinic
• We’ll be prioritizing some patients and some procedures that are more urgent
• We are probably going to change your kids’ appointment times (FACE SLAP! ??‍♀️) – WE KNOW! This is very hard and annoying!! But we want to keep social distancing practices in the office, which means we need to see fewer people each day. And we have 8 weeks of cancelled patient visits to accommodate! Our staff may need cookies and smiles… virtual hugs work too.
• Our goal is that your family will ONLY interact with necessary staff for patient care, and we are documenting everyone your child contacts
• Only scheduled patient(s) plus one adult guardian will be allowed in the building. This is our new “Patient Plus One” policy. Adults will be asked to accompany the patient(s) back into clinic or will be asked to wait in their cars for treatment to be completed. Infants (under age 1) are not included in this count and should be in an infant carrier or stroller at all times.

PRE-SCREENING:

• All patients will be screened prior to arrival to our office!
• 48 hours before your appointment date, you’ll receive an email with instructions to our Patient Portal (you can also get there from our website if you already have your log-in!) and receive a text message appointment reminder with instructions to check your email
• ALL PATIENTS MUST COMPLETE ON-LINE FORMS BEFORE THEIR VISIT – this can be done on a computer, smart phone, or tablet. It’s quite easy!
• If you don’t have an email on-file, contact our office. Your emails are secured on an HIPPA-compliant local server and are NOT USED for anything other than patient communication with our team.
• If your forms are not completed, your child’s appointment will be cancelled
• 24 hours before your appointment, our staff will call and confirm your appointment with you and review your screening questions. Some answers may require our office to postpone your appointment by 2 weeks. We will also review instructions for the next day!
• Make sure your child brushes very well the night before and the morning of their appointment

WHEN YOU ARRIVE:

• Wait in your car and call our front desk to let them know you have arrived. A staff-member will then greet you at the door and escort you in.
• Wear a cloth mask or face-covering into the building. This can be the same mask you wear to the grocery store or when out in public in the community! Everyone age 4 and older is asked to wear a mask. Your child’s mask will be removed when it’s time for treatment.
• Any scheduled patient and accompanying adult will again be asked screening questions and will have a no-touch temporal (forehead) temperature checked and recorded
• Everyone entering the building will be given hand-sanitizer before proceeding into the clinic area
• All patients will then be escorted to the clinic area. The accompanying adult will either follow them to clinic or return to the car. We’ll let you know when your kiddo is done and escort them out!
• Patients will be asked to rinse with an anti-microbial mouthwash (if they are old enough to swish and spit) or will have their mouth swabbed with a gentle sponge and the anti-microbial mouthwash. The American Dental Association recommends this before treatment starts!

DURING THE APPOINTMENT:

• Our NUMBER ONE priority is the oral health, safety and well-being of your child! This is always true, and we will not compromise our treatment and care ❤️
• Because of regulations on procedure types and patient safety, we may not be able to do all of your kids’ planned treatment right now. That means new treatment plans or postponing appointments with “smaller” cavities may occur.
• We may present less-invasive treatments for now. We may monitor something we had planned to fix. But we will not compromise the well-being and oral health of your child. In Pediatric Dentistry there are LOTS of acceptable treatment options! Even if our “perfect plan” can’t happen right now, eventually we will get there together.
• If your kiddo is scheduled for a check-up and an exam, you may notice that we will use more “hand tools” and less “power tools” than before. Some of your kids may actually be very happy about this(?)!! We are still providing the same quality, standard-of-care as before, so don’t fret! It’s just more work for the Pediatric Dentist to do things by hand ?
• When your child is done, they will be escorted to the check-out area and dismissed with you or brought out to your car to meet you. If we need to set up any follow-up visits or review payment or treatment options, we may do that by phone with you.

OK… SO WHAT ABOUT YOU GUYS?:

• We are following ALL GUIDELINES from the American Dental Association (ADA), Iowa Dental Board (IDB), Center for Disease Control (CDC), Iowa Department of Public Health (IDPH), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD). This is A LOT of new information and new stuff!
• We’ve set up new protocols and guidelines for all staff members to follow in accordance with these guidelines. And if one guideline is stricter than what we “legally” have to do here in Iowa… we do the stricter one. Our community’s safety is a priority.
• We’ve trained everyone on our staff and watched a lot of webinars and continuing education classes over the last 8 weeks! ?
• Rest assured that our staff is ALSO screened daily for symptoms, will have daily temperature-checks, and are discouraged from non-essential travel. Any staff member with symptoms will be asked to go home and check with their medical doctor before they can return to our office.
• We have no known staff exposures to COVID-19 and the at this time. If an exposure were to occur, we will contact the Linn County Department of Public Health and follow all instructions on how to proceed.
• We’ll be wearing new PPE, including masks and face shields at all times. This protects your family and protects us! It is super important! For some procedures, we may even have gowns and special “respirator” masks. Oh boy – do we look silly!
  Our smiling faces are still under there with our stellar personalities – don’t worry! ?
• We are cleaning all public surfaces continually
• We are sterilizing and disinfecting all patient care areas continually
• We have specialized HEPA filters in our treatment rooms and have verified the excellent air-flow with our building engineers in our new and updated offices. We are SO excited that both of our offices are so new and modern ?
• 

ANYTHING ELSE I NEED TO KNOW?:

• During Phase One we are going to postpone appointments on any health-compromised patient and patients living in community-living arrangements. This is, again, using guidelines and standards from governing bodies.
• We can do TELE-DENTISTRY by video conference or phone/photo combination. It’s kind of cool ? and very useful. It is secure and compliant with HIPPA privacy regulations. We will walk you through it! Some of you may have done this with other medical providers recently, too.
• If you have ANY questions or concerns, contact our Pediatric Dental Team. We are happy to help! And if your child needs ANYTHING at all during this time or you have concerns about comfort, pain or treatment, please contact us. We always have a Pediatric Dentist on-call if something happens outside of clinic hours. And we want to address all of your oral health needs.
• If your family DOES NOT FEEL COMFORTABLE coming into our clinic at this time, for any reason, that is OK! Let us know and we will make arrangements for a tele-dentistry appointment, phone consultation, or an appointment at a later date for you.
• We really do miss you all and look forward to an upcoming interaction with your family! ❤️❤️❤️

Well - this has been a weird week across the board!  COVID-19 is real and here and our lives are very different.  Things are new for families across the country.  But we are resilient and we will figure this all out together!  We can be lucky... right?

CR Pediatric Dentistry close to General Patient Care

This week, we had to close our doors to general patient care for the safety and well-being of our staff, patients and of our community!

Our office will STILL be here to manage emergent and urgent dental needs, so don't hesitate to call our office if something important comes up.

New Normals...

But we all have a little more family time on our hands, don't we?  We have kids with new expectations of what the "day" will be like.  There will be cuddles and crying; family game nights and time-outs; movies and school work... lots of changes.  We'll be here giving you ideas for snacks (try your best to set limits!!) and activities and to answer any dental questions you may have along the way!

We also thought, with this being St. Patrick's Day week, the world could use a little more LUCK and RAINBOWS right about now.

We've made this neat "Lucky List" for you and your families to sit down and do together some time this week.  Feel free to share yours back with us this weekend!  We'll be posting stuff from our families.  Here are some things we can share right now that we feel fortunate and "Lucky" for:

• Surprise family time
• Amazing acts of kindness around the community
• FROZEN II on Disney+ (!!!)
• Healthcare workers - doctors, nurses, schedulers - across the state working long hours preparing
• FaceTime and Skype Playdates!
• Family walks

What can your family come up with??  :)

Lucky List - CR Pediatric Dentistry

CRPD Lucky List PDF

 

March 17, 2020                                                                                            RE:  COVID-19 Update

To our Patients and Families,

In the midst of this Public Health Crisis with the novel Coronavirus, we want to inform you of office and policy changes that Cedar Rapids Pediatric Dentistry will implement beginning immediately.  We are making every effort to keep our patients, staff, and community at as low a risk as possible for spreading COVID-19.

We have followed guidance by the American Dental Association, Iowa Dental Board, Centers for Disease Control and Iowa Public Health Board.

The following policy changes have been made effective immediately:

• Cedar Rapids Pediatric Dentistry will cancel all non-emergent dental appointments until further notice. All appointments currently scheduled will be cancelled.  Our office will be contacting you directly to reschedule these appointments.  PLEASE DO NOT CALL TO CANCEL YOUR APPOINTMENT.

• Emergent dental needs, such as facial and dental trauma, dental swelling, and pain may contact our office or contact the Pediatric Dentist On-Call. The dental need will then be assessed by the Pediatric Dentists and arrangements for care will be determined and made on a case-by-case basis.

• In an effort to minimize the number of people in our clinic, families with emergent dental needs are instructed to bring ONLY the patient scheduled plus one adult or guardian for a total of “patient plus one” persons. Infants are not included in this count.

We will continue to follow all public guidance made by the Center for Disease Control (CDC), Linn County and Iowa Public Health boards, American Dental Association, and Iowa Dental Board.

Thank you all!  Wash your hands! Practice social distancing!  Stay home and out of public spaces as much as possible.  Help us all work together to slow the spread of COVID-19 and keep our community safe.

-Cedar Rapids Pediatric Dentistry

Sarah Swenson, Teresa Geneser, and Ursula Diehl

COVID-19 Update Policy (PDF)

February is Pediatric Dental Health Month, and we’re excited to kick things off with some tips on keeping your family’s smiles healthy.

Modeling Behavior

Creating good dental habits for your children should start as soon as they wake up. Before breakfast, you should brush your teeth with your kiddos. When children are learning good habits, modeling the behavior can be beneficial. Let them watch you, and then work with them on their skills.

Brushing and Flossing

Start with a soft bristle toothbrush and fluoride toothpaste. Tooth paste amount is important for their safety and should be put on by a grownup until they are old enough.  One-year-olds should have a smear of toothpaste the size of a grain of rice. Three-year-olds and up can have a pea-sized ball of toothpaste.  Children will need help with brushing until they are about 7 years old or until they are finished with 2^nd grade!  Brushing along gumlines is hard – and little wrists may have a hard time reaching everywhere.

Flossing is important because it removes plaque and food that is between teeth. Brushing can only go so far, and flossing does the rest of the job. It’s not only good for your mouth, but helps prevent bad breath, which makes morning cuddles with your kiddos much more enjoyable. Even if your kids’ teeth aren’t touching, you can still work on forming the habit from a young age. Because gums are sensitive, parents should be in charge of flossing until age 6 or 7when kids have better control over fine motor skills.

In addition to brushing and flossing twice a day, you can also take extra steps to protecting your kids’ teeth. The molar teeth are most susceptible to cavities for two reasons. First, their chewing surface have more pits and fissures than the rest of the teeth (they are the wrinkles and grooves on the biting sides!). This can make it more difficult for toothbrush bristles to clean the chewing surface. Second, the majority of chewing is done with your molars, increasing the chances of food and bacteria getting stuck and causing decay.

Preventative Options

To protect your children’s molars, we may recommend an application of sealant when they fully come in.  These grown-up teeth usually start to come in by age-6 for the first set and age-12 for the second set.  They are usually finished growing in about 2-3 years after they poke through, and a protective sealant on their biting surfaces can really minimize the chance of a cavity on these important grown-up teeth!  A report published in July, 2017 by the Cochrane Collaboration, a group that studies and analyzes health information, found that the prevalence of cavities was reduced by 51% in children whose teeth were treated with a sealant.  That’s a lot!  It’s one of the beneficial preventative things we can do to protect them.

Healthy Choices

Brushing, flossing and visiting Cedar Rapids Pediatric Dentistry can help keep yoru teeth and gums healthy.  But it’s important to keep them healthy on the inside too! What you give kiddos for snack and what you put on your family’s dinner table has a big impact on their dental health. Be sure to include colorful fruit and vegetables in your family meals!  Be sure to visit our FaceBook Page HERE for more great snack and meal ideas for your family.