MDS recommend closing dental offices to elective care due to COVID-19

by KEVIN KUO, DDS, MMSc | March 15, 2020

In an email to all Massachusetts dental providers, the Massachusetts Dental Society calls for all dental offices to close their offices to elective dental care from March 17th to April 6th. Dentists are still expected to cover emergencies during the ever-changing situation with COVID-1. MDS writes:

As the facts and situation around coronavirus and COVID-19 continue to evolve, and in step with Governor Baker’s recent Declaration of a State of Emergency, the Massachusetts Dental Society (MDS) Executive Committee and Board of Trustees is issuing the following guidance for dentists in Massachusetts.

The MDS strongly recommends that dentists practicing in the Commonwealth close their offices from March 17 to April 6 to patients seeking elective and non-urgent care. As always, it is expected that dentists will continue to be available as needed for emergency management.

This is not guidance we are issuing lightly, and it is being done out of an abundance of caution during these turbulent times. As health care professionals, we all have a role to play in slowing the spread of the coronavirus and “flattening the curve” in order to follow sound scientific, public health advice, help limit infections, and slow the spread of the virus.

The spread of COVID-19 will be determined by our collective actions now, and this recommendation is being made out of an abundance of caution. We believe by taking these extraordinary precautions, dentists can make a difference in helping to preserve the limited supply of personal protection equipment (PPE) critical for emergency dental care and frontline health care personnel responding to the pandemic.

MDS is one of the first state dental associations to provide guidance to their state dental providers. This comes after a growing amount of test-confirmed COVID-19 in the state of Massachusetts. The State’s community spread has been traced back to a business conference held in Boston. The meeting was hosted by the local company Biogen at a Boston Marriot Long Wharf hotel.