The doctors at Georgia Oral and Facial Reconstructive Surgery are closely following the CDC and our professional societies (ADA, AAOMS, ACS) guidelines for the COVID-19 pandemic. Our doctors will use their professional judgment in determining a patient’s need for surgical care, that may fall into one of the two below categories:    

1. Oral and Maxillofacial Surgical care focusing on the management of conditions that relieve pain and/or risk of developing infection and toalleviate the burden on hospital emergency departments. These will be treated as minimally invasively as possible.

• Dental pain from pulpal inflammation, dental caries, or acute periodontal processes.
• Pericoronitis or third-molar pain 
• Surgical post-operative care (will done by phone when deemed adequate by doctor)
• Abscess, or localized bacterial infection resulting in localized pain, swelling and inflammation
• Tooth fracture resulting in pain or causing soft tissue trauma  
• Dental trauma with avulsion/luxation  
• Oral Surgical treatment required prior to critical medical procedures
• Facial Trauma care
• Tumor and Reconstructive Surgery in patients with deteriorating conditions. 

   

2. Oral Maxillofacial Surgical emergencies that are potentially life threatening and require immediate treatment to stop ongoing tissue bleeding, alleviate severe pain or infection, and include: uncontrolled bleeding, cellulitis or a diffuse soft tissue bacterial infection with intra-oral or extra-oral swelling that can potentially compromise the patient’s airway, trauma involving facial bones, potentially compromising the patient’s airway.

  The guidelines form the American College of Surgeons (ACS) indicate that we “shift elective urgent inpatient diagnostic and surgical procedures to outpatient settings, when feasible”. Therefore, when indicated we will use outpatient facilities to avoid overwhelming the local hospital operating and emergency rooms.