Fry Orthodontics Family,
I trust that all of you are staying well during this public health crisis. All of us at Fry Orthodontics have been feverishly working behind the scenes to keep our commitment to our employees and prepare for reopening our offices so we can fulfill the treatment goals of our patients. I wanted to provide you with an update about what we have done and how we are preparing to reopen once the timing is appropriate.
As you all know, the secret to our business is our wonderful people! I am continually amazed at how our team cares for each other and the patients and families we serve. The past couple of weeks required making many important decisions for our team members. I am proud to announce that we were able to avoid any furloughs or layoffs for our entire team! We wanted our team to worry less about their bills and expenses and focus more on their health and the wellbeing of their families. I strongly believed that figuring out a way to pay all of our team while we were not seeing patients secured the ongoing tradition of great employees at Fry Orthodontics. Keeping these great employees allows us to provide you and your family with the outstanding orthodontic care you deserve.
Many of you have questions about your orthodontic care, and how this pause in your treatment will affect your overall results. One of the realities of orthodontics is that most of the tooth movement happens outside of the office. Every patient has different situations unique to their mouth and their method of treatment, but most every patient should not expect any negative results from this pause in office visits. The overall treatment times should not be affected for most, as we strive to always finish patients early. My heart truly goes out to you that were expecting to get your braces or Invisalign completed during the past month! We had to cancel over 150 removal appointments, and I am truly sorry that this best day of orthodontics had to be changed!
As we look toward the future and how we will begin seeing patients again, I ask for your patience. It will unfortunately be impossible to make everyone satisfied immediately, but I promise that we are going to work as hard as possible to get your appointments rescheduled in a timely way. We had to cancel over 3000 appointments, and everyone will want that first appointment on the first day we are open. We will be unable to achieve that goal, but please understand that we will do our best! Please give us some grace during these next few months as we work to get everyone seen and on track with their treatment.
When we do reopen our offices, we are dedicated to protecting the health of you and our team, but the details are still not clear. We already follow the strictest of sterilization measures, but the world has changed over the past month.
We may have to make some changes that could include:
- Limiting the number of people in the office
- Taking everyone’s temperature when they enter the office
- Delaying an appointment for someone who is ill
- Using new types of protective equipment
As we strive to get our patients seen as quickly as possible, we may make some changes to our schedules for the first months that we are back open. No official changes have yet been decided but they could include:
- Opening earlier than 8 am and staying later than 5 pm.
- Opening some Saturdays to be more convenient for you to get appointments
- Offering more video appointments, if necessary & appropriate
Thanks to all of you for your trust in our Doctors and team and for being partners with us during these unusual times! Stay tuned for more updates, as I will be providing ongoing communication in a weekly blog to keep you informed. Please continue to work with our team and know that we are doing our very best to accommodate you and your family during this health crisis.
Sincerely,
Jeremy Fry