 Hello everybody, Andrea here. Thank you again for commenting on my YouTube videos. I had a viewer comment and asked me to talk about how I talk to my patients about COVID. This is an excellent question. Now, you will have patients who they're serious about COVID but they trust you so they don't really have too many questions. But then you'll have patients where they're really concerned, they're really nervous. It might have taken them months to even just book an appointment because they are that worried about your protocols and your infection control. Or you'll have patients who are kind of in the middle. You know, they take COVID seriously, they stay home, they don't do anything else but they needed to come into the dental office but they're still kind of worried and they're expecting you to help them out and explain things. So I'll tell you what I do. So I'm a mobile hygienist with my own practice. So what I do is when I'm talking to a new patient, if they don't even bring up COVID, they don't bring up policies, they just simply want to book an appointment. That's excellent. I will book it for them. I do what I usually do. I pre-screen them. I send them new patient forms where they fill out the medical and dental history. But then I do ask them. I say, do you have any questions? Especially with me since I am a mobile hygienist, often people say I've never had a mobile hygienist before, how does this work? So those are the questions that they typically have. But then after we talk about that, I will say to them, do you have any COVID protocol, any types of questions in regards to that? I do explain everything anyway. Once I'm at your house, I will show you everything, my disinfectants, anything that you want to see. But if you have any questions in the meantime, do not hesitate to ask. So I find that's very important because that kind of covers everything. It covers those patients who are super nervous, but they might not say anything, they might not ask questions. So if you just explain things as if you would to anybody else, that will make them feel better. That also covers those patients who are nervous and they will be asking you questions like crazy. You might be able to explain things even before they have a chance to ask you that question. And they have a greater trust in you because they know that you know that they're concerned. But it also covers those patients who say, oh, I'm fine. You don't have to explain anything. I trust you, but they might be thinking, ooh, I'm kind of nervous. You just never know. It can't hurt to explain your protocols, explain everything. Something that I do tell my clients, whether I've seen them before or they're new clients, is I do say to them, I say a lot of my systems are the same because as a healthcare professional, we have always been disinfecting, sterilizing. We have always treated every client as if they have an infectious disease. That's how we treat them because we don't know what you might not be telling us. So we have disinfectants that kill everything. We have sterilizers that kill everything. We have several tests to test each load of the sterilizer. I will show them my pouches, my cassettes, my packages where the instruments are wrapped in there. And I will say, see, like this is your instrument pouch today. I open it up in front of you so you know it's exposed to your air and nobody else's. Speaking about air, so since I'm a mobile hygienist, I don't need to bring in an air purifier because I'm in the patient's home. So it's their aerosols, their contamination, if you will. They're not exposed to anything else other than themselves. They're exposed to me, but I wear a mask at all times. So another thing that I explained to my patients is I do say to them before COVID, I would come on in how I normally would, no big deal, put on the mask and everything afterwards. But now what I do is I do wear a mask at all times. Before I come into your house, I will take your temperature to make sure you are okay and anybody else who is in your household that there's no fever. I do send them a COVID pre-screening form the day before with all of those pre-screening questions and I ask them to take their temperature the day before. The morning of their appointment, I message them, call them, whatever it is, and I ask them the same questions. I ask them to take their temperature again. If for some reason they don't take their temperature, then I let them know that since I am mobile, if I arrive at your house and you have a temperature, when I take it, you do only that mobile fee because if you have a fever, I have to leave. So it just kind of covers them to take their temperature again, but then I take their temperature as well when I arrive. And I do let them know before I arrive to their house that I do need access to a washroom so that I can change into my gown, my hair cap, my face shield, my loop safety glasses and of course gloves, I have the mask on at all times. So I do let them know what I'm gonna look like, but I don't just walk in with my gown, hair cap, all of that. I change when I arrive at their house. And I find that's good for kids too. So they can see me normally with the mask on, but more normal. And then I tell the kids that I'm changing into my cool costume to keep me warm because as you can imagine, I look crazy with my gown and everything, but kids truly don't mind. But then I let them know once I'm there, again, I say, before I start setting up, do you guys have any COVID questions, any protocol questions? I am more than happy to answer everything. I tend to talk all day long, talking about protocols that I might forget to mention something to you. So if I do, please do not hesitate to ask me. And while I'm setting up to save time, I will talk about my COVID policies. So as I said everything before, I do mention all of that. I will show them if they want to see them. My disinfectants, I keep my disinfectants and everything under the chair. So as I'm taking them out of my bag, I will say, and these are my disinfectants that I use. They kill everything. I've put them under my chair. I will say to them, what else do I say to them? You know, I say this all day long. It's kind of hard to think about, but I'll say to them, you know, and we disinfect, sterilize everything. I have a sterilizer in my own home that I do use. These are the pouches. I take out the pouches that I will be using for you today. And this is for your household only. Plus I have closed containers that I take out and I will show them and say, each container is per household. So everything you see me opening up is for your household only. I have more containers in my car for the next household. So you know, anything I'm opening up hasn't been in any other home. It is completely clean, sterile, the whole works. And then I'll kind of say to them, but please, do you have any questions? Like, did I not explain something? Please let me know. As I'm leaving, I do say to them, let me know if you become ill, if you become sick, I do need to know that would be really appreciated. If you think of any questions after the fact, do not hesitate to let me know. So that's what I do for the most part. I put the onus on them. I say, do you have any questions? I'm going to show you everything, which I do. But if you're confused about something, please just let me know. We are completely safe. I feel completely safe coming into your home working. Let me know if you have any questions. So I probably sound like a broken record, but that's what I do. But comment below. If you guys are having any troubles with anything, if you feel like patients are more fearful around you, then you just might not be explaining something properly. Or if you feel maybe your dental office is very slow, it's likely because you're not informing patients or you're not letting them know. Social media is amazing. Do post on social media about your COVID policies. I have been getting more and more appointments with every COVID post that I put down where I explain what I do, including my toy box for kids. I do still have a toy box for kids. I see a lot of children. But what I do now is I put new toys in a Tupperware container so it's not like a full toy box. I put new toys in that Tupperware container, close it up, obviously, and I let the parents know this is for your house only. And then what I do when I go home is I quarantine those toys for 24 hours and then I pre-clean them, disinfect them, and then clean them again. So they're completely new, safe. You can't get cleaner than that. I mean, we all go to the grocery store. Imagine what we're touching. Make sure to wash your hands afterwards. It's the same thing when I come into your house. Wash your hands afterwards, do whatever you can, but it's as clean as clean can be. Like it's amazing. We do everything that we possibly can. So I hope that helps you guys. Comment below though, if you have any other questions, I am very happy to help. And good luck with explaining to your patients the COVID protocols that you do have. Please keep in mind, if you work in a dental office, they will be different from me because I work in a mobile practice. So I go to patients' homes. It's a little bit different. Thank you, everybody. Have a good day.