Your Eye Care Visit During COVID-19
While our region has so-far been spared the worst effects of the COVID-19 virus, until there’s a vaccine, effective treatment or other solution, we’re all at risk of contracting, or spreading the virus to vulnerable populations. That’s why we’re continuing to employ protective measures to keep our patients, providers, employees and community safe.
Here are some of the most current measures we are taking, with the recognition that these may change on a daily, or even hourly basis based on the latest guidance from our local, state and national partners.
- Limiting Capacity. We’re limiting the number of patients and staff in our practice at any given time.
- Pre-Screening. We’re pre-screening all patients by phone, and at the entrance to our clinics. In addition to our screening questions, patients may have their temperature checked when entering. Patients who are displaying possible symptoms of COVID-19 or at risk of exposure will be rescheduled for a later date.
We ask that you proactively reschedule your appointment by calling (208) 882-3434 if you’re experiencing a fever, cough, cold, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, if you’ve traveled outside of the country, or to an area with a high incidence of COVID-19 in the last 2-weeks, or think you may have been exposed.
- Distributing Patient Visits. As necessary, we may move some visits between our Moscow and Pullman offices over the coming weeks, to physically distribute patients between the two offices and further reduce contact. It’s possible that your visit may be relocated from one office to another, to help accommodate these efforts.
- Wearing Masks. Patients will be asked to wear a mask during their time in our practice, and your eye care provider, technicians and support staff will be wearing masks as well.
- Limiting Visitors. We’re asking that all patients come to their appointments unaccompanied, with the exception of a single parent or guardian for children, or single caregiver for patients requiring accompaniment by a caregiver.
- Parking Lot Waiting Room. If at any point you arrive for a visit when we have a number of people in our office that won’t allow for appropriate social distancing, you may be asked to wait in your car until we can take you directly to your exam room.
- By Appointment. If you need glasses or contacts, we’re happy to help. Please call-ahead to let us arrange a time for your visit when we can maintain appropriate social distancing.
- Best Practices In Our Practice. We’ve limited and rearranged seating in our waiting areas to allow for appropriate social distancing, and removed our children’s play area, magazines, literature and other surfaces that are difficult to disinfect. In addition to our standard practices for disinfection, we’ve implemented additional sanitization processes for high-touch areas within our practices.
We thank you for your understanding, flexibility and patience. The health of our patients, and community has always been, and will continue to be our top priority.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to call: (208) 882-3434.