05/15/2020
We hope that this letter finds you and your family in good health. Although a lot has gone on over the last few months with the COVID-19 virus impacting our lives, we want to reassure you that we are always here for you. Rest assured, one thing has remained the same: our commitment to your health and safety.
We are excited to announce that we plan to re-open our offices on May 18, 2020. However, please note that given our continued stay at home orders by local and state governments we will only be seeing new patients and those who need annual physical exams in our office. For our sick patients, routine follow ups, and those patients who are vulnerable (for example, those who have underlying respiratory conditions), we will continue treating those patients via tele-health (such as face time/phone calls). This way, we can ensure additional safety by minimizing exposure/risk during this time.
Infection control has always been a top priority for our practice and you may have seen this during your visits to our office in the past. Our infection control processes are made so that when you receive care, it’s both safe and comfortable.
Our office follows infection control recommendations made by the American Academy of Family Practice, the California Medical Board, and 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 agencies’ 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:
Our office will communicate with you beforehand to ask some screening questions. You’ll be asked those same questions again when you are in the office.
As always, we have hand sanitizer available, but we will ask you to use it when you enter the office. You can find these in the reception area and in each patient room in the office for you to use as needed.
While we always clean our patient rooms between patients, we will have more detailed disinfecting processes between patients during this transition time.
You may see that our waiting room will no longer offer magazines, since those items are difficult to clean and disinfect.
We request you complete the required paperwork online prior to the appointment.
Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients. That might mean that you’re offered fewer options for scheduling your appointment.
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 will also ask patients to sit at a certain distance in our waiting room, for safety precautions.
In order to continue minimizing our patients exposure/risk, we will be taking in only one patient at a time for lab work. Therefore, will be asking all patients coming in for lab work to call our office prior to leaving your home and then prior to leaving your car so that we may coordinate your safety.
We ask all patients to wear required face coverings/masks when coming into our office
For added safety, we will have our staff wear surgical masks as well.
We ask that you do not bring guests with you to your appointment.
However, in cases where absolutely necessary (such as a caretaker for elderly patient), we request only 1 person accompany the patient in the office during their appointment. This caregiver will also be screened for risk exposure at the time of the appointment.
We look forward to seeing you again starting 5/18/20 and are happy to answer any questions you may have about the step s we take to keep you, and every patient, safe in our practice. To make an appointment, please call our office at 818-772-7100.
Thank you for allowing us to be a part of your health. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming back our patients.
Be well!
Warmly,
Dr. K & Staff
Alain Karaguezian, M.D.
www.dralaink.com
