Dear Valued Patients,

We hope this letter finds you and your family in good health. Our community has been through a lot over the last few years and all of us are looking forward to resuming our normal habits and routines. 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 and we hope that you have noticed examples during your previous visits to our office. Our infection control processes are designed to provide care that is both safe and comfortable. We would like to tell you more about the infection control procedures we follow in our practice to keep patients and team members 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 closely monitor the activities and guidance of these agencies to ensure that our infection control procedures are current and adhere to each agency’s recommendations.

Merry Dental, like the rest of the world, will look very different when it is time for your next appointment. We have made these changes to help protect our patients and team members. Here are some of the things that we are doing:

• Our office will communicate with you beforehand to ask specific screening questions. If you have signs of illness or have been exposed to someone with COVID, we kindly ask you to reschedule your appointment for a later date.
• We ask that you please arrive to your appointment wearing YOUR OWN MASK if you choose to wear a mask.
• We continue to follow the CDC guidelines for healthcare facailites in regards to masking in the office. Clinical staff in clinical areas will be wearing a mask. Masks are optional for administrative staff and other patients based on the community transmission levels for Hennepin County. We will continue to monitor the levels and adjust masking recommendations accordingly.
• We ask that patients do not bring others into the office, unless they are parents or guardians of patients who are minors or have special needs.
• We have hand sanitizer that we will ask you to use upon entering our office. You will also find sanitizer throughout our office for you to use as needed.
• Our staff will be wearing additional PPE such as gowns and N95 masks. Because of the additional PPE, our office may be kept cooler than usual so please dress accordingly.
• We have added medical grade HEPA air purifiers to all the treatment rooms.
• We will do our best to allow greater time between patients to reduce waiting times for you, as well as to reduce the number of patients in the reception area at any one time.

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.

Thank you for being a part of our Merry Dental Care family. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming you back!

Sincerely,

Dr. Jean Merry and the Team at Merry Dental Care