We hope this letter finds you and your family in good health. Our community has been through a lot over the last few months, 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 you may have seen this during your visits to our office. Our infection control processes are made so that when you receive care, it's both safe and comfortable. We want to tell you about the infection control procedures we follow in our practice to keep patients and staff 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 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 agency's 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. The changes we have made are as follows:

• Our office will communicate with you beforehand to ask some screening questions when scheduling or confirming the appointment.
• You may see that our waiting room will no longer offer magazines, children's toys, and other items that are difficult to clean and disinfect.
• Appointments will be managed to allow for social distancing between patients. That might mean that you are 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.
• When you arrive please call 229-227-1190 for our Thomasville location and 850-668-2080 for our Tallahassee location and we will greet you in the parking lot.
• We will rescreen and check the patient's temperature before escorting them inside. For our established orthodontic and pedodontic patients, we ask that only the patient come inside to allow for better social distancing. For our special needs, small children, new patients or parents that want to accompany their children, we ask that only one parent accompany the patient inside. The patient and parent will be screened and temperature checked.
Parents are required to wear a facemask in the office. If needed, we will provide a facemask for the parent.
• We will have some patients do a pre-appointment rinse before being checked.
• We ask that you keep your phone with you so we can contact you with any questions that we may have while the patient is having their appointment. We will contact you once the appointment is complete to discuss the appointment, take payment, and to schedule the next appointment. 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. We will gladly reschedule your appointment to a later date if you feel uncomfortable with these guidelines.

Thank you for being our patient. We value your trust and loyalty and look forward to welcoming back our patients, neighbors, and friends.

Sincerely,
Dr. Sexton and Staff