Why a PPE Fee?

Covid-19 has drastically impacted all of our lives. As a dental practice, the overall ramifications have also been financially devastating.

 

Dental offices have always been on the forefront of the utilization of universal precautions by treating each patient, regardless of medical status, as an individual having the potential to spread communicable disease. 

 

This has kept staff, as well as patients, in a safe treatment environment.

 

As the panic over Covid-19 spread throughout the US, health care facilities found themselves in steep competition with the general public for the procurement of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), primarily face masks and examination/surgical gloves.

 

This not only resulted in a staggering drop in PPE availability, but also a jaw dropping rise in its cost.

 

And, although the purchase of PPE has now diminished among the non-medical general public, the price has not.

 

Dental offices are now forced to pay 3 times the previous cost for the purchase of PPE.

No aide is afforded to us by any insurance companies, or the Government, to offset these staggering costs.

 

We do not know at what point these prices will diminish, or even return to pre-pandemic rates.

We recognize that this is not an ideal situation neither for us, or you as our patient, and have, therefore, only attached the PPE fee to your 6 month cleaning appointments.

 

Our hope is to one day eventually return to "normalcy", eliminating the need for this fee altogether. 

Until then, we would ask for your understanding and patience as we attempt to navigate these continuously precarious times.

 

 

with much appreciation,

Dr. Betty Jean-Mary