We know that anything affecting your sight can be scary, and that this has been an exceptionally challenging time for all of our patients and their loved ones. At Texas Retina Associates, we remain committed to preserving your eye health and vision while keeping all of our patients, staff and physicians as safe and healthy as possible during the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic. All of our offices remain open, and our dedicated physicians and staff continue to care for patients. In addition, we have a couple of recent updates to share with you:
Masks for Patients
We now ask that all patients bring and wear a mask for their appointments. This is an additional precaution we are taking to help protect the health of all of our patients and our team.
Resuming Regular, Non-Urgent Appointments
Governor Abbott has announced initial steps to reopen the Texas economy, including loosening restrictions on medical facilities and elective procedures beginning this week. As a result, we will start to slowly resume regular, non-urgent appointments at all of our offices. While we are excited about welcoming more patients back to our practice, keeping everyone safe and healthy remains our top priority. All of our current COVID-19 safety protocols will remain in place, including the following:
- Any patient who is experiencing fever or flu-like symptoms, such as cough or shortness of breath, must reschedule their Texas Retina appointment and should contact their primary care provider.
- If you have come in contact with anyone who has COVID-19, please stay home for at least 14 days from the time you made contact and self-monitor.
- If you have recently traveled to any area with documented COVID-19 transmission, please stay home for at least 14 days from the time you left and self-monitor.
- If we suspect that you may have COVID-19, we reserve the right to arrange to send you to the nearest local hospital/healthcare facility that is equipped to deal with this condition. This is to provide you with immediate care as well as to ensure the safety of our doctors and staff.
- We are limiting exam areas to patients only unless the patient requires physical or language assistance. We recommend all other guests wait in their vehicles.
- We are doing our best to get patients into an exam room or private waiting area as soon as possible upon arrival to help meet the CDC’s recommendations for social distancing.
- Texas Retina has always maintained an infection control process, and we regularly sanitize our offices to prevent the spread of infection. We continue to do this more frequently using CDC recommended products.
- We are continuing to ensure that our care team members are vigilant about their own health, including staying home the proper amount of time if they are ill or have been exposed to someone who is.
As always, our staff is available at 1-800-695-6941 to assist you if you have any questions about upcoming appointments. Thank you for your patience and support as we ease into this new routine, and we look forward to seeing you soon.