Coronavirus Update for Dental Licensees-
Non- Emergent Procedures and Additional Recommendations
Per our recommendation yesterday, which was a recommendation to postpone all non-emergent and elective dental services for two weeks, and in response to questions on non- emergent or elective procedures, we opted to provide some examples:
- Any cosmetic or aesthetic procedures, such as veneers, teeth bleaching, or cosmetic bonding.
- Routine hygiene appointments.
- Restorative procedures.
- Any orthodontic procedures.
- Initiation of any crowns, bridges, or dentures, unless it is a more emergent need, such as a tooth fracture.
- Extraction of asymptomatic non-carious teeth.
- Delay all appointments for high risk patients, including ASA 2 and 3 patients, unless it is an emergency.
An emergent dental procedure would include those that relieve pain and infection, restore function (eg. fractured tooth), or are trauma related.
Clinicians, this is certainly not all inclusive and is for example only. However, the list that is going around today regarding essential and non-essential dental services was not issued by the board, as our recommendation was related to emergent and non-emergent dental care.
Additionally, we urge you to consider the following measures when treating emergency patients:
- Use cell phone or tele- dental triage: take a picture of the area and text it to the dentist.
- Have a detailed questionnaire and conversation with the patient before scheduling appointments. Prior to any procedure, ask the patient about flu-like symptoms, travel abroad for self, family, friends, and co-workers to permit a thorough evaluation of the patient.
- Consider taking the temperature of the patient at the outset.
- Careful evaluation of the need for scheduling of ASA 2 & 3 patients.
- Use of 1% hydrogen peroxide rinse prior to examination of the oral cavity by the patient to reduce microbial load.
- Use of rubber dam for isolation and high-volume suction to limit aerosol in treatment procedures.
- Continue proper disinfection protocol between patients.
To prevent overcrowding of waiting areas or the possible spread of infection:
- Consider having patients wait in their cars instead of the waiting areas to prevent inadvertent spread of the virus. Call patient when surgical area is ready for treatment.
- Consider staggering appointment times to reduce waiting room exposure.
- Limit access to waiting room use to only patients. Accompanying individuals have to wait in their respective transportation.
- Remove all magazines, toys, etc. from waiting area to prevent contamination.
As always, and understanding that this is an emerging issue, we are committed to providing licensees updated information and guidance as it becomes available. Thank you for your understanding of need for fluidity of recommendations as information is available. Please direct possible misinformation so we can continue to provide relevant guidance and refer individuals to email me at bridgett.anderson@state.mn.us with questions. If employees and employers need assistance with unemployment benefits please visit https://www.uimn.org/applicants/needtoknow/news-updates/covid-19.jsp.
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